


War Without Weapons

by notenuffcaffeine, technologykilledreality



Series: Monster [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Because of Reasons, Gen, M/M, Omega Stiles Stilinski, Omega Verse, POV Stiles, Poor Stiles, Post S4, Pre-Slash, Rare Pairings, Stiles-centric, That's right, Virgin Stiles, apparently it's possible to have omega-stuff without the non-con!, but that's not really a ship here?, canon compliant through s4, eventual stiles/parrish, except allison doesn't die, future-fic sorta, gender roles angst, it just is no more, just to clarify that part, oh and one more slight change, oh my, omega dynamics, oops stiles stepped in it, s4 canon still happened so that means that stalia was a thing that happened here, senior year in beacon hills, society sucks, stiles enters Dating Hell, stiles has a very bad day, very brief stackson, what's a stiles?, with omegas and matchmakers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2716595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/technologykilledreality/pseuds/technologykilledreality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi, Stiles,” said Lydia.  She didn’t actually sound as mad as he figured she should have been, but she sounded concerned. Stiles frowned. Which was hard to do because he was pretty sure Jackson just licked his jaw right there at the neck and <i> holy god</i> that wasn’t fair. He pawed toward Lydia though because some part of his brain was worried she thought he was stealing her boyfriend and Stiles was pretty sure that was not what was happening. </p>
<p>“Jackson! What are you doing-”</p>
<p>“What happens on New Years stays there,” Jackson reported. Stiles nodded in full, wholehearted agreement. He held up his red Solo cup in cheers to the idea. </p>
<p>... or ...</p>
<p>For most of his high school life, Stiles got along just fine ignoring the whole Omega problem, playing by the same rules everybody else followed and adding in all the werewolf stuff as he went. He wanted to have a chance at something he wanted for himself, not what society wanted for someone like him. </p>
<p>But when Stiles screws up, it's go big or go home, and suddenly his life is turned upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so it all started because tech wanted a fic. 
> 
> I told him it wasn't possible for me to write said fic because i didn't feel like i could pull it off. It's not my genre, i know nothing about a/b/o fics... 
> 
> That was obviously my first mistake. 
> 
> So I blame him for this. It's all his idea, I just wrote it down. :)
> 
> friendly warning: here thar be feelz no sane person in their right mind ever asked for. just sayin.  
> _______

The music rocked the house from a block away. It was cold and dark outside and a little muggy and it was like the bass just vibrated the air. Stiles was giddy.

“This is perfect, man,” he said, bouncing a little as he walked up the sidewalk. Scott looked over at him, somewhere between amused and concerned. “New Years is going to be good years.”

“We’re not even there yet,” he replied. Stiles waved it off.

“Exactly. It’ll be even better than perfect. Just two hundred yards to the epitome of perfection.”

Scott rolled his eyes and let Stiles drag on him excitedly. Still, he wasn’t catching the vibe no matter how hard Stiles tried to will it at him. “And you’re sure your dad’s okay with this?”

Well that was one way to kill a party buzz. Stiles glared at his friend and stopped bouncing.

“I’m sure Dad would be fine with it,” he confirmed. Scott stopped, smacked Stiles in the shoulder from surprise.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“I’m almost eighteen! It’s a senior freakin’ party, man. I’m going,” said Stiles. “There are certain landmarks on life’s journey that my dad didn’t want me to miss out on for nothing. And this is one of them.”

Scott looked like he wanted to find a Catholic confessional and the boy wasn’t even Catholic. “Oh my god you didn’t tell him.”

“I didn’t mention it to him. He didn’t ask me about it. We both have plausible deniability,” muttered Stiles. Staring skyward, Scott contemplated how he wanted to spend the last few hours he had on earth and Stiles mentally assured him he wanted to spend it at Lydia Martin’s New Year’s blow-out. He wasn’t sure if Scott caught the mental communication efforts, but he sure as hell tried. “Do not ruin this, man. You’re my escort, I don’t care-”

“Maybe you don’t but you think maybe Kira might?” asked Scott. “Or her parents if they find out? I don’t know what they think about-”

It was Stiles’ turn to backhand his friend. “They know me. Shuddup.”

“I’m just... aren’t there, like, permission slips or something?” The look on Stiles’ face must have been murderous because Scott waved his hands to backpeddle. “You know what I mean! It’s our last semester next week- You’ve worked so hard for this, dude! What if the party screws something up?”

“It’s a party! I want to go to a party!”

They were having a very heated, whispering argument one hundred yards away from said party and the air was still vibrating and Stiles was somehow losing the spirit. He wanted to go to a party. He wanted to be normal like his _werewolf_ friends. He wanted to have a chance at something he wanted for himself instead of what somebody else wanted for somebody like him. And he definitely didn’t want one of his best friends to stand there and tell him he couldn’t have it. Scott sprouted fangs and claws and went all werewolfy when he got too excited, so nobody told him what to do. Alpha perks. And he had no clue what it was like for somebody different than him. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he cared. And Stiles just wanted to go to a party. Scott finally caved.

“But stay out of trouble, okay? I mean it,” was all he said finally. Stiles pounced on his neck and then bounced away a few yards, once again excited. Scott said yes, so that totally counted as permission. As long as he didn’t remind anybody that he was older than Scott and Scott wasn’t yet actually of legal age, alpha or not, to make any decisions for anybody, let alone an omega as-yet uncivilized. Stupid rules were stupid anyway.

He was going to a party. Stiles didn’t ask permission, he wasn’t going to ask anyone’s permission, and there was nothing he could do at a party that would make anybody care whether he had permission or not.

 

***

 

Jackson Whittemore frenched him on the stairwell because they were both half drunk.

Except of course that. _That_ could make people care. That could make people care a lot. Except Stiles really, _really_ didn’t care about people just then. He cared a lot about where Jackson’s hands were, because they were south of the equator and then they were right there at it and then they were traveling north on a freaking G6 and... _nope_ it wasn’t supposed to feel like that when somebody touched his face, Stiles was pretty sure. A little bit of scruff was a dangerous thing, he learned, because a little was not enough and Stiles was happily petting Jackson’s face while making out with him. On the stairs. In Lydia’s house. Yeah, _that_ was a problem.

“Jackson!” came a very, very familiar hiss and Stiles startled right out of his happy-place attached to Jackson’s face. He looked over at Lydia before Jackson did, surprised and yet thoroughly enthralled when Jackson just nudged at his neck when he turned away from him.

“Lydia! Hi!” Stiles refused to admit that his voice squeaked because he refused to admit Jackson had buried a hand in his jeans back-pocket while his girlfriend was staring at them. “Uh- I’m sure this is...” He stopped trying to talk because he wasn’t sure he knew what he was saying. _Bad_ was the only word that came to mind but at the same time... “Hi Lydia...”

“Hi, Stiles,” said Lydia. She didn’t actually sound as mad as he figured she should have been, but she sounded concerned. Stiles frowned. Which was hard to do because he was pretty sure Jackson just licked his jaw right there at the neck and _holy god_ that wasn’t fair. He pawed toward Lydia though because some part of his brain was worried she thought he was stealing her boyfriend and Stiles was pretty sure that was not what was happening.

“Jackson! What are you doing-”

“What happens on New Years stays there,” Jackson reported. Stiles nodded in full, wholehearted agreement. He held up his red Solo cup in cheers to the idea. Lydia crossed her arms.

“You came all the way back here for New Years Eve with _my friends?_ ” she asked. She caught at Stiles’ arm to tug him down a stair-step and out of Jackson’s easy-pocket-reach. It was an unwanted grounding moment and Stiles definitely came down. He looked a little hang-dog as he followed subtle orders and Lydia set a protective arm around his waist. His life was completely unfair. All the same, Lydia was his friend so he muttered an apology for boyfriend-borrowing. She stretched up to kiss his cheek.

“Calm down, it’s not your fault,” she said mildly. Stiles blinked at that but he wasn’t sure if it was because of her words or the fact that parts of him usually reluctantly and intentionally oblivious to Lydia had very much taken notice of a friendly smooch she had bestowed a dozen times before. He was a little confused but chose to blame Jackson because she did and because the guy had somehow unlatched Stiles’ belt without him noticing earlier and _god_ that was suddenly awkward. Jackson caught up Lydia - while she was still half attached to Stiles’ waist - and kissed her. Stiles blinked again because that wasn’t fair at all.

“Hey wait-” he said before his mind had fully caught on to his mouth stupidly saying anything. Jackson dropped down a step and traded them off, bringing Stiles’ face right up close to Lydia’s as he was thoroughly kissed. He went a little wide-eyed but Lydia didn’t break them up or run after the garden hose or anything; he took that as a good sign and let himself get back into it because that was _Lydia’s_ arm around his waist and he had a _fully_ active imagination. Jackson pulled away and Stiles shifted just enough to try marking up the scruff at his jaw.

“Lydia, come on. Knowing him? It’s his first and last high school party,” said Jackson. His mouth was close to Stiles’ ear as he whispered at Lydia, and it did devastating things to Stiles’ nerves where Lydia had fisted a hand in his shirt. “It’s just Stiles. The guy deserves a break and you know it.”

The obvious invitation surprised Stiles enough that he stopped licking at Jackson’s neck like he had done earlier. He was still right there in shared space with both of their faces - although Lydia was a good bit shorter than them - and he pulled back enough to stare at them. “Wait... really?”

Jackson’s eyebrow - the one Stiles could see - climbed high and Lydia scrunched her nose. Stiles’ mouth was probably hanging open like an idiot so he tried to remind himself to be chill. He was only _half_ drunk. He could still hold his chill. Being half-drunk wasn’t new. Being given a chance at making out with his high-school crushes, even if it was just a one-time-deal, _that_ was brand new.

“Stiles?” Lydia asked. He nodded quickly.

“Right here, present and accounted for and-”

“Oh my god Stiles don’t say it,” said Lydia. He blinked at her, silently wondering if she could read minds. She let go of his waist to tap a finger on his nose. “Are you okay?”

“I am great, I swear,” he said. Jackson nudged his cheek with his nose to get his attention back. (And for the record, _that_ trick worked great.) Stiles stared at him, then at Lydia, then back at Jackson, in a bit of a dilemma right there on the stairs.

“Then do you want to have some fun with us?” Jackson asked. There was an audible sigh from Lydia and Stiles’ nodding head held still as his attention pinged back to Lydia. She held up her finger again.

“One time,” she warned. “What happens at New Years blow-out stays there. And you don’t get to be mad at me later.”

“I’m not ever mad-” Stiles’ attempt at reassuring her was slowly teased away by Jackson and he was totally okay with not being mad at anybody for a long time because New Years Eve was a sexual-fantasy godsend. He tripped on the stairs leaning up toward Jackson and Lydia helped prop him back up since he had an arm around her. He might have actually giggled because she did. Lydia shook her head but finally cracked a grin as she tucked under Stiles’ arm.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you deserve a party if you want one, Stiles,” she said.

Stiles stayed on the stairs and watched her, feeling amazed. She got it. She was a freakin’ _goddess_ and she got it. “Just one, I swear,” he said.

Lydia rolled her eyes but she was still smiling. “Then go. Upstairs! Get the party started!”

Stiles resisted the light push just to press a kiss to Lydia’s cheek, just like what she would do to him. She grinned at him and caught his hand, tugging him up past Jackson. Not to be outdone, however, Jackson grabbed hold of Stiles’ belt - that he’d finally gotten redone - and held him still long enough to get his scruffy face in against Stiles’ and _the things he could do with his mouth just weren’t fair..._

“What the hell are you doing to that omega?” came an earth-splitting shriek. It probably hadn’t been _that_ loud but it felt like it to Stiles. He thumped back against the wall and away from Jackson, but his hand tightened on Lydia’s involuntarily. She moved down a step protectively as Jackson backed off. At the base of the stairs, Jackson’s jerk of a father stood staring up at them. David Whittemore was a lawyer. He knew Jackson had a restraining order out against Stiles - technically still in effect, _oops-damn_ \- and he knew Stiles’ dad. And he was probably only at the party because he was mad at his over-aged, globe-trotting son for risking being seen at a high school party. So the guy really didn’t need the extra excuse to be mad. And there was Stiles, the omega in the mix, screwing with Jackson’s reputation. If Stiles had a tail, it would have been tucked. Jackson at least had the decency to take the alcohol away from him so he didn’t get busted for that. The guy shrugged down at his father.

“There’s nothing wrong with breaking in the omegas,” he said. Lydia’s hand tightened on Stiles’ fingers. He just wanted to leave.

“Where are you in your cycle?” Mr. Whittemore demanded of him. Stiles wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if the party actually stopped. Scott showed up and edged around people to stare up at them. It made Stiles feel a little better and yet simultaneously worse. But Scott wouldn’t let anything happen so Stiles shrugged out of the shame. Anger kicked in and he moved away from the wall, brushed intentionally up against Jackson as he let go of Lydia’s hand and started down the stairs.

“Relax,” he said to the lawyer, as much disrespect as possible in his tone. “I’m going home.”

“Who brought you?” Jackson’s dad demanded. He caught Stiles’ arm. “Who takes you home?”

By then there was an actual scene and the party had paused. The music kept going but the dancing had stopped. People were staring. Stiles kept his shoulders straight and glared at the lawyer who had invaded Lydia’s party.

“Nobody!” Stiles shoved at him to get him to let go. “I came here on my own. I take myself home.”

The man shook his head. “That’s a bad idea. You’re obviously in-”

“Don’t even!” Stiles actually shouted to keep the man from finishing the sentence. It was stupid. His life wasn’t fair. A hundred people at Lydia’s party and all of them perving in on his life. He knew better, he was still sober enough, but it didn’t matter. He was embarrassed and angry and even if he wouldn’t admit it, he was scared. He dragged a fist across the lawyer’s jaw and that was just enough of a surprise that the man let him go. He looked up at Jackson and the horrified Lydia, but he was slightly reassured by the proud grin on Jackson’s face. The guy gave him a subtle thumbs up and a smile, then shrugged and nodded toward the door.

What happened on New Years Eve stayed there.

So Stiles left before he could get in trouble for it. Nobody actually got out of his way as he tried to weave toward the door, and he was shoved a bit for the wrong kind of reasons as the music pounded on. Scott followed to make sure nobody hassled him. But nobody claimed him. Stiles made it to the door and saw himself home, just like he said he would.

The party was fun while it lasted, anyway.

***


	2. Chapter 2

The day after the party, Stiles avoided his dad. He was expecting a phone call from a lawyer’s office. He was expecting a deputy to show up and read him the riot act if not arrest him under his dad’s nose. Stiles had maybe gotten a little buzzed and maybe actually hit a lawyer in the face. He wasn’t a wolf, he didn’t have any superpowers to really make it anything more than an embarrassment for everybody, but punching a lawyer was technically an assault and battery. He was going to get sued, guaranteed. Or something.

But none of the Whittemore’s showed up. The next day, Jackson sent Stiles a text message. Somebody had gotten video of them on the stairs. Stiles was horrified when he realized where his hand had wandered to when Lydia caught him at the waist. But the video stopped before Jackson’s dad showed up and there was nothing actually traumatizing about it. New Years Eve was apparently captured on cellphone video and would last longer than promised, or at least until he figured out if he wanted to keep the file or pretend it didn’t exist. Stiles realized Jackson had sent it so that _he_ had it. Maybe just that one time the guy wasn’t being a jerk.

They had that Tuesday off for a travel day and Stiles returned to school on Wednesday. It was a normal first-day-back. Except he found somebody had shoved scraps of paper with phone numbers in his locker; it looked like multiple somebodies wanted him to have their phone numbers. Stiles blinked as he shoved his books in his backpack. He left the notes where he found them, not fully trusting them, because really, who even did that? And why hadn’t they done that in any of the previous three years of his living out of that locker? Okay, Stiles kept pretty busy with the whole corralling werewolves thing and he was the worst player on the lacrosse team and he spent way too much time worried about keeping his head attached to his shoulders to really focus on anyone messing with his locker for non-nefarious purposes. But he would have _noticed_ people giving him their phone numbers. He would have _called_ the numbers, for one thing. Maybe spent a little less time on the internet over the last couple of years... Stiles rolled his eyes. It was not his favorite time of the month and he needed to just get through it. One more day of it and then he could get back to normal.

He was met by stares and whispers when he walked into his first class. Coach was teaching history this year and Stiles and Scott had followed him into it because they couldn’t abandon their favorite coach to a new subject without being certain he was properly hazed all through it. Six months in and it was an easy A and the best part of their day. Stiles had caused a lot of trouble in that class before but he had never been quite the center of attention. He took his seat and looked around, texting Scott to find out why he wasn’t there yet. Conversations resumed around the room as people waited for the bell and everyone wandered in. Scott didn't reply to the texts. Stiles slumped in his chair and waited.

Coach showed up before Scott did. The bell rang and class got started and Stiles worried about supernatural things as the coach prattled on about the significance of New Years and why he never, ever, ever wanted to hear that any student of his ended up in the hospital on New Years Day waiting to have an antique time-piece surgically removed from their-

"Coach?" The story was interrupted by a blonde girl from Spanish class raising her hand. It threw the coach for a minute but he realized someone not Stiles wanted to participate. Finstock waved for her to get on with it.

"We were doing our readings over the break and we were wondering what started the Omega Uprising of 1824? The book doesn't say," the girl said. Stiles' attention slid to the front of the room and he slouched a little lower in his chair. _Right_. The girl just happened to be doing her readings over the break. And she spoke in "the royal We" just to make sure everyone believed her capable of it. Once again Stiles felt everybody staring at him. He was the only one in the classroom at all who would be expected to know anything about an Omega anything. It was the kind of thing that the class pulled out when they wanted to make sure Stiles didn't say anything that class. If Coach tagged him to answer that question, Coach was going to find super-glued tacks on his chair.

He didn't call on Stiles. But he botched the story. Stiles sunk a little lower in his chair and hung on to his desk to make himself stay in it.

The problem created by Coach Finstock being a moron on occasion was that the simple answer wasn't good enough and suddenly the class was talking about the uprising. Stiles didn't personally have any family members in it. It wasn't something he had any vested interest in. People just assumed he did so he learned over the years just so he could prove to himself that people were idiots. It finally built up too much and Stiles huffed out an annoyed sigh. He patiently raised an arm and didn't say anything, just waiting to be called on because he knew better than to talk out of turn like the rest of the class was, on that subject particularly. The class went quiet, curiosity practically hanging in the air. Coach Finstock stalled on calling on Stiles; he looked a little wary of letting Stiles have the floor at all. But he manned up and let him talk.

“The Omega Uprising of 1824 was started,” Stiles reported blandly, “because a woman who had just given birth was told the child wasn’t good enough because it was a girl and the father wanted a boy. And the omegas in the community got a little mad when he tried to marry a second omega to get it. Then things got out of hand because nobody ever bothered to take note of the number of omegas in town doing the chores and the feeding of the foods until the omegas decided to _stop_ doing this. People went nearly a week with no access to regular meals which made them cranky idiots who don’t know how to cook for themselves. The omegas boycotted for a week and brought a town to its knees to save a couple of omegas from being bred-out.”

The class went quiet. Stiles sat in the front of the room and rolled his eyes at the blackboard.

“But that’s their job, isn’t it?” asked a voice from the back. Stiles clenched his jaw and raised his hand.

“Stilinski...” Coach was probably warning him off it but Stiles took it as permission anyway.

“That was the uprising of 1824. The one this year involved actual bloodshed at a high school,” said Stiles.

“Okay, how about them _Trailblazers_ -” the coach tried. The student at the back got huffy though and wouldn’t catch the hint.

“There hasn’t been a successful uprising since the one in 1824,” said the brilliant basketball player who wouldn’t leave it alone.

“Nope, but there’s gonna be one real quick,” returned Stiles. He very resolutely fixed his attention on the board and refused to turn around. Various kids started complaining that Harrison hadn’t done anything wrong and conversations started up, the favorite observation being that it was someone’s time of the month.

“Unless Jackson took care of that for him while he was here,” somebody said.

“He did. It was at the party,” someone else added quietly. Everyone was just full of helpful information back there. Stiles glared at the wall.

“I saw it on facebook,” was basically the last straw and Stiles caved, looking to Coach for some kind of help. Coach really sucked at shutting them down though.

“Facebook has nothing to do with 1824. It definitely wasn’t around back then,” said Finstock. One of the other students took his cue and got back on the topic Stiles really didn’t want to deal with just then.

“But all Harrison said was that back then, it was their job. All of that, the chores and the kids and everything. The guy could have more than one omega if he had land and needed the work. So it doesn’t make sense why-”

“Puhleeze,” said Stiles, trying not to growl like Derek. He didn’t have teeth. He couldn’t scare anyone in the room into shutting up. “It’s not a job. It’s a medical mystery, one which modern science literally has no explanation for. Okay? It’s voodoo. It’s not a job.”

“There’s explanations,” said someone. “Evolution.”

“This isn’t science class,” interrupted Coach Finstock.

“No, Stilinski’s just being a bitch because his boyfriend dreams didn’t come true. No Whittemore babies to end the year on.”

“Okay, knock it off!” That actually made the coach mad and the room got quiet. Just at that moment the door opened and Scott ran into the room. He was winded and looked like he had been in a fight. Stiles sat up, giving his friend his best “what the hell!” face and trying to pretend the class hadn’t turned on him in the ten minutes Scott had been gone.

“Sorry, Coach,” said Scott. He stood at the front of the room and hung on to the straps of his backpack, catching his breath like a bad actor. “Principal sent me to get Stiles. For a... thing.”

Stiles started shoving his books into his pack even as he stood up to leave. He looked to the teacher in the room as an after-thought and Coach waved him out. His attention turned to the class.

“Now I’ll remind you heathens that the reading over the break was on World War 2 and had jackshit to do with anything in 1824...”

Stiles tried not to slam the door on the coach’s lecture.

 

***

 

Given the rumpled look, which wasn't Scott's usual, and the tiny barely-noticed bit of blood on his shirt collar, Stiles would have bet money that Scott had been in a fight. After the past two years of the werewolf-stuff, he knew the signs. He was used to seeing the weird magic healing now, which was probably why he hated seeing blood at all and why he zeroed in on it when his friends showed up to class dotted in it.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Stiles hissed at Scott as they headed through the halls. "Who was with you?"

Scott looked at him, confused, so Stiles reached out and flicked at his shirt. The light bulb clicked on in his head then and Scott shrugged off the concern.

"It was just a school thing. I handled it," he said. Stiles frowned at him, brows shoved together in blatant confusion.

"Then where are we going? I thought-"

Scott didn't look happy about the misunderstanding. "I told you, you got called to the principal's office."

"What? I haven't done anything- you're the one who got in the fight-" Stiles spluttered, at a loss. Scott shook his head.

"I dunno but they called in your dad and everything," said Scott. Suddenly distracted, Stiles tripped. His friend caught him, worried, but Stiles hardly noticed. He couldn't think of any rules recently broken, and nobody would ever hand him any kind of scholastic awards no matter his grades. His attendance record was actually pretty damn clean, too, aside from that one case of werewolf-induced pneumonia that Scott's mom had forged the note for that one time last year...

As they fast-walked, Stiles dug into his backpack and he and Scott split a bag of jerky on the way. He found gum too and was gnawing on that by the time they stood at the office door. Scott noticed and smacked him on the back of the head, pointed at a trash can as a hint. Right. Manners. The principal had this hang-up about hats and chewing gum. The gum was tossed and Stiles and Scott went inside.

And then Scott was sent right back outside and told to go on to class. He was handed an excuse note and everything. Stiles stared after his friend, well beyond concerned now. His dad stood across from the secretary's desk, in his uniform. He had been called in from work. Stiles started to ask but his dad beat him to it.

"Any idea why the district superintendent called me in to talk about a student problem?" the sheriff asked in his Dad-voice. The voice where he whispered really loud and acted like it made it harder to be overheard instead of easier. Stiles gaped like a fish, at a total loss.

"I didn't do anything this time, I swear to god," said Stiles. He weathered his dad's scrutiny and seemed to pass. The principal stepped out into the hall then and waved for their attention. Stiles wasn't sure if he was still on his dad's hit-list or if it was a show of solidarity that got Stiles caught by the scruff of the neck and steered into the inner office.

It wasn't just the principal waiting for them in the conference room. The superintendent was really there. Stiles stared openly when he saw the third person in the room was Jackson's dad.

"Oh shit," he blurted. The hand at the back of his neck let go just to smack him lightly in the back of the head. The lawyer across the room looked doubly scandalized.

"Knock it off," Stiles' dad told him as an afterthought.

"I didn't do anything," said Stiles. "Just to put that out there. Clear the air..."

"Unfortunately you did do something. And it is already _out there,_ " said Principal Thomas. He very obviously didn't approve of what was 'out there.' He pointed Stiles toward a chair. "Which is why Mr. Whittemore and Superintendent Johnson are here, and why we asked your father here."

"I'm sorry, say that again?" said Stiles' dad.

"For the sake of simplicity, we'll show you," replied Whittemore. Stiles paled as the laptop on the table was pushed toward his dad. He shook his head quickly.

"Nope, I get it, it's about the party-" he said. "I told him about the party."

"Did you tell him you were there?" Whittemore asked. Stiles nodded and his dad arched an eyebrow but he didn't call the lie. Maybe lawyers had a sixth sense or something because Whittemore didn't seem to believe them. He crossed his arms. "Did you tell him you violated the restraining order?"

 That was putting it mildly.

"Well, no, but that was kind of a mutual decision, so I didn't actually violate anything," replied Stiles. His face was probably bright red but the embarrassment was slowly getting back to anger.

"What are you-" began the sheriff, only to be interrupted by the frustrated-looking superintendent.

"Your son attended a senior party over the holiday and was seen playing _tonsil hockey_ with his former _lacrosse captain_. That is hardly a sport we encourage with young omegas, for their own safety, so when a video of the incident is let out in the internet for the entire student body to see-"

"What?" It was hard to tell which part hit his dad worse and Stiles stood up from his chair again to try to stop the blindside-attack the men were trying to unleash.

"It's not that bad-" Stiles tried but he was interrupted then by the principal.

"There have already been multiple complaints from parents," the man said, huffy. "Four voicemails from parents of other omegas concerned about the environment-"

"What environment-" argued Stiles. "You mean like how I was just _attacked_ by half my history class-"

"And there were two seperate fights already this morning because of this," the principal continued, talking over him. "It has become a problem. We obviously have no way of knowing who posted the video to have them take it down-"

"There's no point! There's nothing-" Stiles blinked as he was yet again ignored, the three adults who had ambushed his dad again chiming in like some kind of Greek Chorus to spell out all the gory details of _the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Incident of The Omega On the Stairs_ and the trauma it was causing the entire student body. It was embarrassing on top of maddening and Stiles could only watch his dad get slowly angry because no one would otherwise let him do anything. They just ignored him.

"Dad!" Stiles tried to talk over the principal to get his dad's attention. "It was just Jackson and Lydia. They're my friends! We didn't do anything wrong-"

Whittemore kept on, ignoring him. "Sheriff, your son was the only omega present at the party. Not only that, he punched me when I tried to send him home-"

"You _grabbed me-_ "

"And rather than involve lawyers and the city council again, after the nearly disastrous incident with the stolen escort van-"

"Oh my god-"

"I went to the superintendent so that we could bring this dangerous behavior to your attention and ask what you intend to do about it going forward."

The room got quiet as the lawyer finished his lawyering and Stiles stared at him in some weird hybrid of shocked and angry.

The sheriff's uniform made his dad's face seem particularly pink. Stiles stared at his dad and tried for his most innocent face. The one that silently asked his dad to keep his cool and leave before something stupid happened. The best course of action was a full retreat. There was no way to win against an ambush and Stiles really hadn't done anything wrong. It was all just for show and Jackson's dad was just picking on Stiles because of Jackson's image. Even his dad was ignoring him though.

"So let me get this straight," the sheriff said. He sounded calm enough. Stiles still tugged at his arm in a hint. His dad went to the effort of dodging the prodding but kept his attention on the others. "You're saying my kid went to a party, with other kids, and he messed around with his friends-"

"Jackson still has a restraining order," Whittemore reminded them. The sheriff ignored him.

"So because these teenagers all did what teenagers do at a party, and someone filmed it and put it on the internet to spread around like wildfire _without_ his permission... Because of that, you're telling me I have to do something to fix his behavior? As in, my son's behavior is the problem here?"

The principal had the nerve to nod at the sheriff's very loaded question. "Yes, because this isn't the only incident and-"

"What? Name one thing I did wrong," challenged Stiles.

"What we're looking at here, from this side of the table, is a teenager acting out against the end of the school year. It happens all the time. But when that student puts themselves or others in danger, we have to step in, make sure the parents are aware and that someone is monitoring the problem," said the superintendent.

The notion hit Stiles as strangely hilarious; he had dealt with werewolves and monsters for two years in the dark and the school thought he was having trouble adapting to the idea of no more school after graduation. He did laugh. "I'm not acting out!"

Whittemore waved at the laptop. "Really? The internet porn you attempted to make with my son and his girlfriend says otherwise."

Stiles really wanted to correct the man on his definition of porn but he decided instead to feel sorry for Jackson's mom. He rolled his eyes. "It was a kiss-"

Whittemore crossed his arms, glared a little. "There's _three minutes_ of video."

When his dad turned to look at him, unreadable past the annoyed expression, Stiles shrugged. He had no possible way to know how long he had made out with somebody on the stairs because he hadn't exactly been looking at his _watch_. "It was a party..."

Whittemore acknowledged that with a nod. "You were obviously there unattended during your heat. You were not behaving like the other party-goers."

There were a few things in the world that could piss Stiles off enough to make him want to punch somebody. An actual stranger assuming he had any right to talk about Stiles' personal business in the Omega-department was a big one and he really thought he had already made that clear to Jackson's dad at the party.

"Okay, you need to just stop," he said out loud. "That's got nothing to do with what happened."

"It has everything to do with it," said Whittemore. "Your poor judgement, combined with alcohol and the real and documented effect of pheromones are all a direct result of your heat cycle. This is why you're in special classes, to teach you these basics-"

"No, this is why I'm _not_ in the Omega track, because it's all BS," argued Stiles. He was glad to see Whittemore’s surprise but that didn’t make him any less frustrated. "I'm not going to attack somebody because of some moon cycle, nobody's going to attack me. _That's_ documented, too."

"The fact of the matter is that a party is a dangerous place for an Omega unescorted, he should not have been there. He should know better and yet obviously does not. As a result, we have an omega student body of nearly four hundred children whose parents now question the validity of their students' education," said the principal. "I can't explain to them that you aren't on the track, that you haven't been taught the things their children have-"

"Now just a minute... My son's education is just fine," said the sheriff.

"Yes, it would be, were it not for the fact that he has special needs as an omega that obviously haven't been met," said the superintendent. Whittemore and the principal nodded their agreement with the judgement. Stiles' dad just got a little more red. The superintendent continued on while he still had their attention.

"Now we understand your position, Sheriff. You've a very demanding job. The town needs the sheriff and you are good at that. Perhaps because of that, despite the best intentions you had when waiving your son's involvement in the omega track, you're not so good at educating your son in the things he needs to know. And that makes it the responsibility of the school to step in-"

"Oh come on," interrupted Stiles and his dad at the same time.

"Sheriff, what would the council do with this?" Whittemore asked. That stopped Stiles' annoyance and dropped him right in to _worry_. His dad was still trying to hold composure; they had been allowed maybe two words of input into this so-called problem and Whittemore and his school-minions just kept pushing. What was his dad supposed to say to any of it? And now they were bringing in the council? Stiles crossed his arms and squinted at Whittemore, trying to figure out what the guy wanted.

"The council has no opinion on how I let my nearly eighteen year old kid grow up," said the Sheriff of Beacon Hills.

"Wrong," said Whittemore. Stiles paled as the man's absolute certainty on that point changed his world-view a little. "They care when the man in charge of maintaining law and order, protecting kids and keeping hoodlums off the streets, has chosen to let his son grow into a willful omega - an already at-risk demographic - with no apparent acknowledgment of the potential consequences. Not only will the county literally pay for any harm the boy finds his way into, they will pay for any other students who follow his example."

"He didn't do anything wrong," said his dad and Stiles nodded to back him up. "He was a teenager, being a teenager. With _other_ teenagers."

"And the results could have been disastrous. Your son doesn't appear to know even the basic expectations of someone in his shoes. A pregnant omega is at highest risk when they are unaware of the pregnancy..."

Stiles blushed then and nearly turned to leave the room. "It was a party! They're my friends! I was fine the whole time-"

"Promiscuous behavior is dangerous and we have four hundred students at high risk who cannot be allowed to follow that example," said Superintendent Johnson. He waved toward the laptop which thankfully had yet to play the video they had threatened. "And unfortunately, now, there's been quite the example set. Your son is at the heart of it. And because we allowed you to waive the Omega track for him, the school is in a tenuous position also."

Stiles shook his head. "I'm a senior, so it's a little late now."

"Honestly, what do you expect us to do about something that is clearly someone else's fault?" added his dad.

"We expect a modicum of respectability from our students," said Principal Thomas. "Student safety is always first. And your son put himself in the spotlight here which means his behavior has to change. He has a record of bending the rules and that obviously will no longer be humored."

"What? I'm supposed to be the perfect little omega now? I'm not. That's not me. It doesn't happen," said Stiles. "I can't. No."

His dad nodded and Stiles breathed a little easier at the reminder that his dad was still on his side. "He wants to be a cop, for godsakes. What part of that sounds like he wants to stay home and take care of babies?"

"He wants to be a cop or _you_ want him to be a cop?" asked Whittemore. "Someone who wants to be a cop doesn't kidnap the person they _apparently_ have a crush on and lock them up in a transport van. And it's slightly disturbing to me that, in light of that incident, your son is still single and hounding my son."

"Oh my god-" Stiles turned away, exasperated. The guy just wouldn't let that die. Stiles had to stifle the urge to laugh though because Jackson’s dad thought Stiles was _hounding_ a _werewolf_... The sheriff squinted at him as a hint that the amusement showed and Stiles coughed to clear the swearing fit. He was much more contained when he looked back across the table. "So what if I'm single- I'm freakin' busy! School takes time, you know-"

"My son isn't single," said Jackson's dad. "You need to move on from this unhealthy obsession with him and Lydia."

"They're _my friends_ , how many times do I have to say this?"

"You haven't exactly built up the track record to be trusted."

"So, what, I go sign up with that matchmaker on fourth street and get out on proper dates and all that crap?" Stiles asked, grasping at straws for ideas on how to make it all _just stop_. If there were monsters in the room, he had a couple packs of werewolves he could yell for help and they could at least get him out of the corner he felt trapped in. But this was just... bullying. Stiles had no easy way out and was stuck on any good ideas. "Is that a positive enough freaking omega example for you? Prove to you your stupid son isn't the sun that makes my world go around or whatever you're worried about?"

"That would help, certainly," said Whittemore.

"Fine," said Stiles. "I'll go date people so everybody stops worrying about me preying on their children. Oh my god. I actually can't even."

Stiles started backing away, too absolutely done to deal with them. He had no interest in dating; he was kind of preoccupied generally with werewolves but he couldn't exactly mention that in present company. He waved his hands and dismissed the whole terrible meeting. His dad angled between him and the others, the anger on his face faded but still there.

"That's it then?" he asked. "I take him to the matchmaker and you're happy with this image problem you've got?"

The superintendent shook his head and Stiles charged back toward the table a few steps without thinking. His dad caught his arm as a reminder and Stiles managed to at least keep from yelling.

"I didn't do anything wrong! What do you want from me here? Blood sacrifice or something?"

"No. Your idea of the matchmaker is a novel one," said superintendent Johnson. "And I hope for your sake they find someone who can handle you. But the fact remains that you have shown a grievous misunderstanding of the very basics you will actually need to survive the real world beyond high school."

Stiles actually laughed out loud at that and had to turn away. He had already survived the real world so many times. The superintendent had no actual idea what he was talking about. All the same, his dad caught him around the shoulder and steered him back to face the triumvirate determined on causing his personal destruction sans violence.

"So, in light of the obvious stress the current course load has put your son under, with the acting out and the attitude... We're asking you to revoke the waiver you filed, Sheriff Stilinski. Your son could benefit from the omega track counseling for the remainder of his time with us. And the other students in his circumstances would benefit to see him learning and involved in the path nature set for him."

"I'm already going to counseling with Dr. Morell," Stiles argued. The superintendent looked like he was losing patience with Stiles' tendency to argue. Too damn bad for him.

"The track is designed to offer multi-faceted support for Omega children and allow them to safely pursue their goals-"

"I wanna be a cop," said Stiles sharply. "How is home-ec going to help me safely learn how to be a detective and fight the bad guys?"

For a moment there was a long, disapproving silence. Whittemore looked at Stiles' dad like he had committed a Darwin Award-worthy crime and the sheriff's anger banked a little more. He set his jaw and his shoulders and didn't say anything. But Stiles noticed. That hurt a little. Principal Thomas cleared his throat and turned his attention to Stiles again.

"To put it simply, it won't. It will help in other ways that are more important," he said. "And whatever you want to do after graduation is your responsibility to pursue but we are responsible for ensuring you know the-"

"Yeah, the basics, I get it," grumbled Stiles. Shoulders slumped, he gave up. "Whatever. I just want to get back to class. I'll take home ec after school or something."

"No, you won't be returning to class," said the principal. "You punched Mr. Whittemore and broadcast it to the whole school."

"What?" asked his dad, looking to Stiles in alarm. "You actually did that? I thought they were exaggerating, holy god..."

"It's on the video online," offered the superintendent. Stiles paled. His dad pinched the bridge of his nose like he was warding off a headache. Stiles knew the feeling.

"And the video led to two fights at the school this morning. So regardless of whether your father revokes the waiver, you are suspended for a week," the principal finished speaking and Stiles could only nod at the half-expected news. It figured. It made perfect sense. They were making an example of him so of course they would resort to suspension. Rather than say anything, he nodded obediently and picked his backpack up off the floor near the chair he had so briefly occupied. That was what was expected of him and he just wanted to leave sooner.

"So Sheriff? Do you authorize your son returning to the Omega track to curb this kind of behavior?" The superintendent asked. The sheriff huffed out a sarcastic laugh.

"If you think it will fix anything, you're crazy," he said, shaking his head. He looked at Stiles, meeting his eyes. Stiles shrugged at him. He didn't care. He just wanted to leave. Maybe go piss off a werewolf, talk them into a nice gory gut wound that would somehow change his silent social status. Maybe Derek would help him with that. Maybe he knew some werewolf cure to the omega thing.

"Yeah, fine. Change tracks," his dad said. Stiles shrugged into his backpack and stared at the floor. Whatever. He just wanted to be somewhere else.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

The worst part of the day was signing the paperwork. The classes Stiles loved disappeared with a click of a mouse and the _crank-whir_ of a printer. He had to sign his name to the new plan and his dad had to approve it. The alternative was to be held back another year, tolerate a full year of the Omega track instead of the last six months, because he was missing the heart of the “foundational education” for his role in society. It was a nice little corner, take the Omega track or walk away with nothing. All because he had embarrassed the school and publicly encouraged dangerous behavior and _yadda yadda bullcrap_. The second the pen was put away, Stiles was headed for the door. Jackson’s dad handed his dad another piece of paper before they could leave.

“For the sake of integrating into the new program, you could consider this your first homework assignment from the new track,” said Mr. Whittemore. Stiles frowned at it without really seeing it since it had been handed to his dad. The sheriff looked like he wanted to punch a lawyer but he didn’t because it would mean bad things for his job.

“I thought I was suspended for a week,” said Stiles.

“You are,” said the school principal, leaving no question on that issue whatsoever. Stiles took the printout his dad handed him.

It was the application form for the matchmaker Stiles had made the mistake of mentioning. He almost ripped it up but his dad smoothly removed it from his hands before he could; he had made a promise after all. His dad caught the back of his neck at his shoulder and had to not-so-subtly push Stiles from the room.

Once he was out of the conference room, Stiles headed for his car without being told. His face was bright red for reasons that had nothing to do with his internal temperature being whack from his cycle. Just embarrassment and anger. His dad did a good job of keeping up but the second the bell rang and the halls filled up with students, Stiles hit the doors running before someone saw him. The sheriff’s uniform stood out a little too much for his dad to get away with the same tactic.

Stiles had just thrown his backpack into the jeep when his dad caught up to him and tried to tug him away from the open door, get his attention. Stiles jerked his shoulder out of the gentle grasp and refused to turn around. He started to get in the car instead; he didn’t want to talk to anybody. That included his dad.

“Stiles, stop,” his dad said, patient but probably upset. When he didn’t listen, his dad caught him and dragged him back down to put his feet on the ground and face him.

“I’m not staying here,” said Stiles.

“No, but you’re going to come back here in a week, don’t even try to pretend _that_ isn’t happening,” said his dad in the Dad-voice. “You’re still stuck with this place for another six months so running from it now isn’t going to do you any favors.”

“Yeah? Like the freakin’ Omega Track is going to be a big one?”

“It’s better than not graduating,” his dad pointed out. Stiles scowled off at the trees that lined the parking lot. Then he kicked the jeep.

“Hey!” His dad caught him by the shoulders and made him look him in the eyes.

“It’s my car!”

“I’m not worried about the stupid car, Stiles!”

That got through a little and Stiles set his jaw. “What then?”

“Get your stuff. Okay? I’ll drive you home-” Stiles cut his dad with a hard glare that stopped the offer before it was even finished.

“I can drive myself. I’ve been driving for three years. I’ve been scheduled for the Omega Track for eight. A stupid meeting doesn’t-”

“Knock it off!” said his dad. He sounded angry so Stiles bit back the rest of the rant. His dad watched to be sure he wasn’t going to argue it more before the rest of the lecture tumbled out. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Stiles. You know who’s side I was on in there and who’s side I’m on out here and who’s side I’ve always been on. Don’t you _dare_ try to put me on their side on this.”

Damnit. His dad wasn’t helping. The last thing Stiles needed just then was to break down and cry but he was so close. “I just want to go home.”

“Fine, then I’ll give you a ride and we’ll pick up the car tonight after I’m off work. Give you a chance to calm down, not - hell, Stiles, if I’m pissed off, I know you’re in no state to drive, alright? And it’s because of this... ambush. The school thing. Alright? _Not_ the other thing.”

For his dad’s sake, Stiles at least pretended to give it consideration. Then he said, “I’m fine to drive, Dad. I just wanna go home. You go back to work, I go home. That’s the whole theme of the day anyway...”

His dad shook him by the shoulders, careful but still an obvious clue that Stiles wasn’t being as reassuring as he was aiming for.

“I mean it, Dad! I’m fine.. Okay? I just wanna leave...”

His dad stared until Stiles raised his eyes to look at him. That seemed to do it and his dad seemed to back off a little.

“Fine. But this isn’t done, okay? Don’t worry about it right now. I’ll call my lawyer, alright? A real one. We’ll talk about it tonight when I’m off work. See what our options are then, got it?” he asked. Stiles just nodded. His dad went to hug him and Stiles stiffened up; the last thing he needed to be was the weak omega who needed coddled by his dad, right there at school. The message seemed received so the sheriff went back to his usual stance with a nod. He did ruffle Stiles’ hair though.

“I mean it then. Drive safe, Stiles. You get mad, you pull over. You call me. _Drive to arrive_ , remember.”

Stiles nodded at the offer. “Can I go now?”

And the sheriff let him get in his car and Stiles didn’t wait to let him change his mind. He saw his dad walking toward the sheriff’s cruiser when he looked in the rear-view on his way out of the parking lot. Left took him home. A right turn took him anywhere _but_ home. The thought of the empty, messy, house had Stiles idling the jeep as he tried to sort out what he wanted to do. _Home_ was part of the problem as Stiles saw it, because home was where he was supposed to be, behaving himself according to a double-standard he apparently couldn’t escape.

When he saw that his dad wasn’t looking, Stiles went right.

 

***

 

Stiles was half way to San Francisco before he realized where he was going. He stopped at a gas station because the jeep wasn’t used to freeway miles and ate through half a tank of gas in an hour’s drive. When he looked around, he only mostly recognized where he was. He had just pointed the car at the freeway and ended up there. A couple of times a year, he and his dad made it to the city for baseball games, so Stiles knew mostly how to get there. He knew it cost money for gas and he knew it was going to cost money for the toll bridge and he knew it was going to cost money to park the car almost anywhere in the city.

Just at that very second, he really didn’t care.

He was still under twenty-one, he was still unmarried, unattached, and unemployed. And after the scathing reminder from the school that morning, Stiles was having a hard time believing he’d ever be allowed to have his own money again. Once he graduated, the free-ride was gone and he was supposed to work for a living, as somebody’s nanny or something, apparently. It wasn’t his scene. He had avoided it - almost entirely - since he was almost ten years old. He wanted to be a cop like his dad, a detective, kicking ass of the human and supernatural variety if he had to. He didn’t exactly know what to believe of the picture the meeting at the school had painted for him yet. He was still in a strange kind of shock; he hadn’t done anything wrong, _for once_ , and yet his whole life had been turned inside out in a matter of hours.

He was supposed to go to school now to learn the rules for the omegas, how to keep house and a checkbook and raise up kids, when and where he could go without an escort, the trials and tribulations of their entire class of the human race. Because they had to know their place, because omegas were fragile, women and men died in childbirth for those lucky, magical few. Stiles had been quietly flying under everyone’s radar for two years, rough-housing with werewolves and banshees and monsters of every stripe, and none of them cared that he faced a hormonal monsoon season every full moon. He had almost a week of feeling like he was on the edge of crazy, from hormones, from pain, from phantom efforts of his body to magically shift around his insides to make room for something his body wasn’t actually designed to carry.

The werewolves had their own crazy full-moon reaction: their faces contorted, their ears got long and pointy, their dentist bill went out the window and their claws made the manicurist faint, just as the tip of the iceberg. They had a lot to control. Stiles had a lot on his plate trying to keep from turning into kibble. He wasn’t _fragile_ if he could run with werewolves.

Omegas were _supposed_ to be though. They weren’t supposed to leave home or take chances because their survival so often depended on their community, on spouses and doctors and specialists. Omegas were high-maintenance. Stiles tried not to be but he was really, _really_ good at getting in trouble. He didn’t have anyone to claim him or vouch for him or make sure he got to the hospital if he was hurt; he could do that himself or die trying. (He was so far statistically more likely to die trying to save his friends than he was defending himself anyway.)

Now a bunch of old jerks were shoving it in his face? _Hell no_.

Unattended and living off his dad’s money, Stiles pointed his old beat up jeep toward San Francisco. He had to at least see how far he could get.

 

***

 

Nobody in the city looked at him twice. Stiles found himself on the piers by the baseball field, a little cold because of the wind, wandering with no particular goal in mind. He was around people. And they treated him like any other tourist. He paid too much for food, he bought a jacket because he hadn’t dressed for the fog and the rain of the bay area, and nobody gave him any crap. Nobody noticed the escaped omega running wild on the big city. If they did, nobody said anything. Nobody stopped him to ask where his escort was.

It was San Francisco, Stiles was in a tourist district, so he did vendor-cart food and _a lot of it_ because he was on his last day of physical-chaos from his heat cycle and it had been a hard one. He needed the energy. He just wouldn’t tell his dad that he had eaten a whole basket of curly fries and a burger and his dad wouldn’t bitch about their health-food deal where his dad only ate rabbit-food on days that Stiles ate rabbit-food. Not like what he ate in the city would really be a concern for long when it settled into his dad’s head that Stiles spent the day _in the city_ without anyone else to supervise.

It was the first time he was alone in any city on his own. He had always gone places with his dad or with Scott. When he was younger, he went places with Heather’s family sometimes but that had stopped when he was eleven. He and his dad went camping. They went to the baseball games in the city. Otherwise, Stiles’ entire life was wrapped around Beacon Hills and he didn’t untangle himself from it much. Now he was two and a half hours away from home, by himself, and not sure yet if he was excited or terrified. He knew the statistics and he knew it wasn’t smart; the social opinion that omegas were weak made them easy or at least frequent targets for a whole list of potentially violent crimes. The escort practice was there for a reason, supposedly, but Stiles had never gotten too hung-up on it.

The thing of it was that he knew he wasn’t the only omega in the city. He knew the signs as well as anybody. He even saw a woman at the park with a litter of kids, a set of triplets and a set of twins and an older girl who must have been family, too, probably a daughter. The triplets were in a stroller and the twins had to be about five, running amok and being chased by the oldest girl. But the mom’s tan face was rosy and tired like Stiles’ was that day; out in the same wind as her kids and she was the only one of them who turned quite that shade of pink. Stiles watched as he ate his lunch, unconsciously keeping track of the twins and the older daughter because it was a big park and there were strange people in the city and what if someone got hurt? But they didn’t. And before long, the woman’s husband showed up and literally swept her off her feet in an enthusiastic hug. He said he was happy to see his girls. She said she was happy it was his turn for diaper duty.

For some reason, Stiles had never missed his mom so much in his life.

He left the park when his food was gone and he walked. Just one foot in front of the other in a vaguely westward direction.

 

***


	4. Chapter 4

The day was half over, all dark clouds and cool, with still another half a shift left to go. Jordan Parrish sat in his car for lunch that day, feeling like he had to rush. The community he looked after was still settling down after a rowdy New Years. Of course, "rowdy" was a relative term, as it was nowhere near as busy as it could be. It was just busier than usual. Parrish had put in overtime on New Years Eve and New Years Day, then taken the day off to go to his parents' house for a visit and come home too late the night before. That was why his car had locks: he could nap on his lunch hour, undisturbed, then get right back to the daily patrol with fresh eyes. He didn't do it often but sometimes it was a good idea.

Other times, however, it wasn't his best idea ever. Sometimes he was just too tired to be trusted, and that particular Wednesday seemed to be one of those days. Parrish fell asleep, lost all track of time, and dreamed.

His mind wandered back months and months to a drier winter evening. It was after sundown, crisp and cold instead of muggy and cool, and he woke up in an empty parking lot. In his car. Locked inside. There was no rain then, just the sparkle of gasoline across the windshield. And then fire. So much red and yellow, purple flames that danced along the vents at the hood. And then the air sucked out of his lungs and everything around him burned, hot and piercing pain everywhere until the world went black.

Jordan woke himself up with a stifled shout, just barely remembering it was only a nightmare. It wasn't a new one. Thankfully it disappeared as he blinked around at gray clouds beyond the windows. Sporadic rain drops decorated the glass, reflecting color and gray, but not enough to turn on the wipers to smear it away. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, took a steadying breath as he woke up the rest of the way.

Those were definitely not his favorite lunchtime nap-time dozes. He would be sure to get his beauty rest that night rather than risk it again any time soon. His radio squawked a moment later, the dispatcher a friendly distraction. And just like that, Deputy Parrish was back to work, the terrifying nightmare tucked in the back of his brain to be forgotten for the day. He was good at compartmentalizing like that, and he really didn't have time to rehash the whole unexplainable fact that he should have died a year earlier. It was approaching the first anniversary of his "death" and apparently his brain kept a full-color calendar of important events Jordan wanted to forget. He just didn't have the patience to dwell on it.

Instead, he brightened someone's day by frowning sternly at them and letting them drive away with an equally stern warning about the dangers of speeding. He took the drive thru at a Starbucks just to start up a day of Play-it-Forward buying coffee for the cars behind him. Jordan got called to pick up an early drunk and escorted the man safely to the drunk-tank at the station to sleep it off on the cot in the cell instead of in the gutter. He had a busy day to keep himself focused on.

Later, he sat at his desk toward the end of his shift. He frowned at the computer screen there, distracted listening to the sheriff quietly and yet with obvious frustration try to haggle with someone on the phone. He talked about a lawsuit, he asked about an appeal to a judge to get around the county superintendent - an unbiased judge, no less, which worried Jordan a little - and he called doctors. The deputy at the desk in the bullpen tried not to listen, and for the most part the sheriff kept his voice too quiet to understand. But Jordan could read lips fairly well and he had a good idea of the conversation, but no idea what any of it was about. It was enough to make him worry that his boss was in trouble.

It ate at him long enough that finally, when the sheriff seemed to have given up on the phone calls for awhile, Parrish stood and moved to the door. He knocked and the door creeped open, letting him in. The sheriff looked up at him, haggard and exhausted as usual, but he welcomed the company.

"Everything alright, boss?" Jordan asked. The sheriff seemed to grit his teeth but he eventually nodded. He shrugged and waved a hand, not really committing to an answer.

"Just politics, Parrish. I never could figure them out," he said.

"Politics? Like actual politics?" Jordan wasn't sure how to read the answer and his confusion settled on his expression along with the concern. "Or do you mean the kind with teeth and questionably legal ammunition?"

The question somehow amused the sheriff, based on the grin that tried to take hold on the man's face. "Thank god for once I mean actual politics."

Accepting that as a win, Parrish nodded. "Anything I can help with?"

"Not that I know of. Nobody in their right mind seems to be able to help so far," said the sheriff. Jordan nodded again in feigned understanding, pulling back a little to close the door and leave. He paused when the sheriff looked back up at him with a grateful sort of smile. "But thanks for asking. I'll let you know if I do."

"Good call, boss," said Jordan. He offered up a winner's grin and returned to his desk, his spirits a little lighter than when he had left it.

 

***

 

Stiles was used to getting in and out of places without being noticed. He was good at being in people’s faces and having them not notice him. Friends were a rare concept, even though he loved everybody, adopted everybody, because he just wasn’t on anybody’s radar. Erica and Boyd had dismissed him outright but he still counted them as friends and helped Derek try to find them that summer. Even Isaac hardly gave him the time of day, and Allison really hadn’t warmed to him over the last two years. It was something he was used to after so long. He had the pack and they couldn’t get rid of him no matter how hard they tried and that was good enough for him. Sneaking into places unnoticed was actually a useful trick now anyway.

So it went in San Francisco; nobody really noticed him. Stiles walked more than drove anywhere and cleared block after block with no one bothering much more than an acknowledging smile. He found himself in a big bookstore and it felt more like a library. Quiet. He didn’t find anything worth spending money on, but he found things to read and was left alone to do it. He wandered into aisle after aisle just browsing, until he accidentally came to an aisle that dead-ended into some kind of reading group.

“Well, for starters, you have to understand what an Omega is before you can look at why we favor them so highly today.”

The speaker’s completely laughable statement triggered Stiles’ anger right back up. He felt anything but favored. And he really, really wanted to tell her about it, but at the same time, he really just wanted to walk away. The point was to find his calm. He didn’t have any bad-guy-supernatural-beasties to outsmart this time, only himself, and Stiles’ best idea to that end was to just... chill. Whatever the woman running the reading was talking about, it was definitely not going to improve his chill. But Stiles was curious before he was smart and he decided to wait, hear more. Then _maybe_ argue if the BS meter got tipped too high.

He listened to the woman ramble about the surface symptoms, the hormone overloads for girls and boys both, the cherry cheeks and moodiness for a full week out of every month. Stiles was glad he wasn't a female omega because they had a double whammy with their normal "female issues" not always being in sync with the chaos of the omega syndrome. The woman telling the small crowd all about things Stiles knew better had the audacity to call it all a blessing. It was just internal chaos, Stiles didn't need any kind of degree to tell people that. But he didn't say anything as the woman carried on, outlining the stereotypes. The sensitivity, the constant rush of natural chemicals that made omegas vulnerable to their own internal ups and downs but resistant and healthy to things like the flu or allergies.

For reasons science was still exploring, omega-types lived longer. They were _harder to kill_ and Stiles knew that personally. He had always been stronger than Scott until the werewolf thing. He had never been fragile like omegas were supposed to be. He climbed trees and fell out of them like he bounced. Scott was the asthmatic who couldn't keep up running without an inhaler before the wolf bite but Stiles had always been the one on the bench because the school didn't want to get sued if he got hurt. Always. It was factually wrong but omegas were supposed to always move in packs, or with an escort, because they were _fragile_ and would break.

"Now this is a mixed crowd, so I'll speak carefully here, but omegas have a healthy... appetite. And I don't mean in the kitchen, though they're happy there too," said the woman. It was met with encouraging laughter and Stiles wasn't sure if he wanted to bash heads with a bat or laugh at all of them for being so stupid. He settled for quiet, seething anger and crossed his arms; he had joined in too many sex-jokes over the years for anyone to believe the woman was wrong. Instead, he leaned on the nearest shelf and tried not to glare.

"But part of all that, the hormones, the chemical changes, the... Sheer physicality of the average omega... Is their propensity to fall in love," the woman carried on, absolutely clueless that she had evoked the ire of the lone omega in the audience. "They love nearly everyone they meet. Instant friends, loyal to a fault, because of their make-up. It's a beautiful thing, really. To want to care about strangers and wish them well, always welcome them. It's why they are so often, so easily, abused; they don't have the physical ability to withdraw from harmful people. Their own bodies create an addiction, like a drug, and they struggle to leave harmful places."

It made Stiles mad that he couldn't argue that. The science was there. And he knew it well enough, considering how many times Scott had personally tried to kill him, and yet there they were, still friends. Mentally determining that the woman's one point of dramatic-twisted truth _didn't count_ , Stiles aimed his glare at the floor to listen and try not to get distracted. She went on a while about the more obvious medical signs, like men popping up pregnant, because that wasn't "normal" and once upon a time, doctors thought an omega male was more likely to get stomach cancer and die from it than any other part of the population. They didn't notice it was a baby leaching the life out of the omega. Not until doctors realized they could cut out cancers and they tried it on a suffering man, who was likely very shocked to realize he had fathered a child, not a cancer.

"But it wasn't until only a hundred years ago that we could save the male omegas. It's a risky situation, the male carriers still have a higher mortality rate. Meanwhile, the female omegas pop out litters, carrying triplets and quads and more, producing healthy babies. It's so much easier for them, even the men, because they heal so quickly. It's frankly enviable," the woman speaker told the group.

"But the question is how?" asked one of the audience. He had to have been paid to do it because the woman instantly smiled and held up her book, like a walking info-mercial.

"I explore that in here. I did months of research, traveled to multiple countries and combed through every historical library I could get my hands on. All the data seems to point one way..."

The dramatic pause was annoying, partly because she had Stiles' attention trapped with it. He wanted to know what she had found. Because he wanted to do his own research on it, too. The blue-gray haired woman just smiled, shoved her glasses a little further up her bony nose, and watched the small audience with cautious delight.

"So what is it?" Stiles asked, out loud even though he hadn't meant to. The woman glanced over at him in the back, kindly, and raised a hand as though to settle the rowdy children that she thought made up her audience.

"An old culture, very old. It predates the omegas because it created them. They were steeped in tradition and ritual and magic, a wise people, but a playful people. They had a vicious sense of justice and a terribly ironic sense of humor," she said. Various audience members asked " _who?_ " And the woman's smile faded soberly.

"The fae," she said, completely serious. It was met with snickers and an actual snort of surprise, her enthralled audience lost to the world of reality. Except for once the woman was actually speaking Stiles' language. He slowly unclenched his fists as he considered it.

"The fae were their own breed, certainly, tiny things, sharp teeth and dangerous habits. But in every culture, they have interacted with usual humans, like you or I. They were a real people, alive and well, however small in stature," she said. "And they were, like I said, a ritualistic people. One does not break their word to a fairy, they do not like to be tricked or outsmarted, and they are long-lived and clever. So a blessing from a fae was often disguised as a curse. There was always a lesson from it that they wanted to gift upon us poor hapless humans."

"So you're saying omega are fairies?" asked someone near the front, incredulous and slightly offended.

"No, I'm saying they are the result of a fae blessing upon the human race. There is no way to know who will present as an omega. Children develop the hormone response as they grow. We don't know why. It is random and chaotic, like the fae," she said. "But the omega are still... In every possible way... Human."

"But they're cursed?" asked someone else. Stiles went pale, the question hitting a little too close to his life that day. The author however just shrugged it off.

"The gift of life is a blessing, from somebody's god or from the fae, it is not a curse," she said. "What my research offers is the findings that the fae played with human biology to give that gift to those randomly chosen by genetics. God grants life to humans, but the fae blessed humans with chaos, with that spark that makes them omegas."

The rhetoric wound around in circles and Stiles knew he needed to leave before he got mad. But despite his better judgement, he was still curious. So, trying not to be noticed about it, he tracked down the book somewhere else in the store - afraid the woman would otherwise offer to sign it if she saw his still-slightly-pink cheeked omega face - and bought it. To make himself feel better, he wedged it in between a graphic novel and an idiots' guide to teaching himself guitar, like he had no special interest in the matter, _there was nothing to assume from his purchase choices, not at all_.

He cracked open the big book when he got back to the jeep. The sun was going down and the temperature had dropped, clouds rolling in with the winter fog. He wasn't used to the Bay Area so he couldn't tell if it was going to rain or if he just smelled the ocean. Either way around it, he was almost out of daylight and his day in the city was over. He needed to go home before his dad called to yell at him for not already being there like he had promised. But he wanted to check out the fairy thing a little more.

The first thing he noticed were the glossy pages and the colorful pictures. _Of course_ there were pictures. It was a fairy book, mostly, but the promised research connecting fae to omega syndrome was really in there. So was a table of contents with all twenty-five chapters listed, each one with a title that probably tried to be witty. Stiles wasn't exactly in a mood to be amused and he rolled his eyes at the chapter called "Omega Purity: the Wedding Night vs the Gene Pool."

Stiles tossed the book into the seat beside him. He was just so completely _done_. Annoyed, he looked out the windshield up the busy street. He wasn't far from the park still and it seemed like an okay area, nowhere near the piers and the heaviest tourist areas. People lived here. And just up the street was a bar, neon signs glowing in the dusk like Christmas lights. Stiles looked over at the book slowly disappearing into the dark beside him. He picked up his wallet from the seat and checked the hidden pocket along the seam where he kept his ID. The one his dad didn't know about but probably suspected; his dad wasn't stupid, and Stiles wasn't exactly a genius that one time he had brought home a bottle of jack and not realized it didn't match the one already in the cupboard over the refrigerator. But his dad never asked where the extra bottle had come from and there was no fingerprint powder or booby-traps on it when Stiles checked it. Tucking the fake ID into the main pocket and storing his real one, Stiles looked to the fairy book.

“Purity is overrated," he informed the offensive, shiny pages. Then he slid back out of the jeep and headed for the lights of the corner bar. "Who needs purity when you have debauchery, that's what I say."

 

***


	5. Chapter 5

The debauchery plan was flawed, of course. Stiles realized it as he tucked his fake ID in a pocket and stepped inside the bar. It was illegal to smoke anything in California businesses, but for some reason the bar had a hazy feel to the air, thick like smoke still clung to the walls. The other strong scent on the air was booze. Alcohol. Beer. Somebody had spilled a jack and coke on the wall near the door and Stiles could still smell it. It was a dive, lower than the corner pub and higher than the motorcycle gang hangout. There was no way to tell who was there to get drunk and who was there to pick up business, which was a big snag in Stiles’ initial ideas to find random sex and piss off the morally righteous omega-puritans everywhere. Random, meaningless, just for the sake of being _dirty_ and _anti-pure_ , sex. But he didn’t exactly have money to pay a hooker, either. Only Stiles Stilinski would lose a battle of wills because he walked into the only bar in town where even _the people_ required cash, that was just his luck.

It also wasn’t fair that his under-drinking-aged, son-of-the-county-sheriff self was suddenly reminded he was over two hours away from home and couldn’t drive there after drinking the number of drinks necessary for the idea of meaningless sex to really sink into his brain. He wanted to piss people off but he didn't want to die to do it. His options shrank significantly at that point because he wasn't going to have anything harder than a dr pepper on the rocks and none of the strangers in the bar looked particularly appealing without the mythical beer-goggles. Stiles edged his way to the bar to think it over and ordered himself a coke - no, no Jack to go with it - and a big-ass basket of fries to go along. He pulled out his cellphone to check the time and then, without the thought seeming to consciously enter his head, started dialing for Scott. Scott could drive. Scott could pick him up. He could get absolutely plastered and Scott would get him home; that was what bros were for. The order for a coke was added to, and Stiles watched the amber whiskey dollop into the coke as he listened to the ringing.

Except Scott had a terminal aversion to answering his goddamned phone, and Stiles was one drink into his spiked coke. Stiles dropped his phone on the sticky bar top and glared at it as it mocked him.

So he left the drink alone and stood there, looking around, trying to remember what part of debauchery via dive-bar sounded like fun. He caught sight of a pretty blonde woman who reminded him of Erica and the foul mood shifted a little. She stood down the bar, around the corner, wedged beside a couple of guys who looked like escaped yuppies in the wrong part of town. That part wasn't so awesome so he gave up on the fleeting daydream, but he still had to remind himself not to stare.

"Where's Ricky?" one of the guys asked her, further removing Stiles from his hope that maybe Erica-the-werewolf had somehow survived and Derek had put her in hiding in San Francisco. She would never go for somebody named Ricky. Not after Boyd. Derek wouldn't let her, no way no how. Plus the woman didn't sound like Erica at all, too high pitched and preppy.

Or maybe Stiles was just being overly judgmental because he was on the last day of his heat and holy hell it had been a bad one.

He tried to settle down and only idly eavesdropped, still debating what to do with the jack and coke in front of him on the bar. Apparently Ricky was mad at Blondie and decided he didn't want to go out because he had to work in the morning. That logic gave Stiles a moment's pause until he remembered he was suspended for the first time in his life and didn't have anywhere to be in the morning.

"Screw it," he announced to no one in particular. He picked up his phone and called his dad. His dad would come to San Francisco and pick him up. His dad would answer the phone at least, anyway.

"Yo Daddio," he drawled into the phone, trying to find his hyper-self as someone picked a dance-mix song on the actual jukebox in the corner.

"I'm sorry, what?" his dad asked on the other end of the phone.

"Nothing. I'm bored," said Stiles. He flicked at the glass in front of him on the bar, considering how dead he wanted to be in three hours. Did he lie and fake a kidnapping? Or just rip off the bandaid and tell the truth, then yell at his dad about sucky genetics in the morning when he had a hangover?

"Where are you?"

"Would you believe me if I said I was at home?"

"No. I am ninety percent certain you don't own any ABBA music," said his father. Stiles paused and had to pay attention to realize the catchy dance music was Dancing Queen. Band-aid time then.

"Okay so I'm in Frisco," he said.

"What the- Don't call it that again. Only classless tourists call it Frisco. Jeezus, Stiles," his dad wasn't talking but he wasn't whispering as he said it either. _Yay_ for the awkward Dad-voice translating through the phone in visual-quality. Stiles winced as it continued. “I’m not entirely sure if you get this, but San Francisco is not in the general vicinity of _home_ , Stiles, if you look at a map."

"Maybe as the crow flies or something," Stiles suggested with a halfhearted shrug. "Raven maybe. They're bigger."

"Stiles!"

"Okay! I get it! But I had a shitty day and I wasn't sticking around to watch it get worse. So if you love me and ever wanna see my smiling face again you'll come pick it up because it is about to get _shitfaced_."

"Excuse the hell-"

"No. ‘Cause I don't have to, there's nothing _wrong_ with _you_ , so just... Have somebody teach you how to use Find-A-Friend on your phone and come pick me up. I don't know where I am so just track me down. Hell, I don't care if you _arrest_ me. It's a thing you can do. _You_ have a shiny badge that says so. Okay? Okay! Bye."

And Stiles hung up on his dad, at once angry and terrified. He had never in his life been so mean to the man and meant it. He put his phone on mute and shoved it in his pocket fast, afraid it would bite him if his dad called back while the sound was still on. If he didn't hear it, he wasn't ignoring it.

He was so dead. In about two and a half hours he would be killed by his dad. Maybe less if the good Sheriff of Beacon County cheated and used the lights and siren to get away with speeding. Maybe more if he crashed because he was speeding in the rain.

Stiles went back to contemplating the alcoholic adult-beverage mocking him from the bar. There was no drink in the world worth all the trouble he was in now. A basket of food was slid into view and Stiles picked at the fries. The noise of the bar settled around him and he spaced out, lost in his own head more than paying attention to anything.

"But I tried telling him, now's the time, you know?" The blonde woman's voice broke through and Stiles glanced up to see she had taken a seat at the bar with her friends. She sounded upset. "Everything's going great at work, I can finally afford to do this."

"Then why don't you do it?" asked one of the group. One of the others smacked him in the shoulder for it.

"I just don't understand why he's being this way. I mean, I can't have kids. He knows that. He had to help me after the accident and the surgery and everything. But we want kids! And now is the perfect time. We're not too old yet, you know?" she said.

"So tell him. Just tell him it's time," said her friend. It slowly dawned on Stiles that the group was talking about Blondie's missing Ricky. And Stiles' opinion on the preppy name changed really fast when he realized Ricky was an Omega. A stubborn, pain in the ass, willful one who didn't want to pop out a kid because his wife said it was a good time for her to fit it in to her schedule. Stiles shamelessly eavesdropped on Ricky's wife complaining to her friends. The group was made up of two guys and two girls, and the brunette lady frowning sympathetically still agreed with the guys when they told Ricky's wife how to knock him into line. The woman shook her blonde curly hair and gulped at her martini as she tried to talk with her hands instead.

"I tried," she promised them. "He said he just got that part time job at the museum and he doesn't want to lose it. But it's like... I made enough without him working. What about a family?"

"You just have to remind him. The kid thing is his job. That's why god put people like him on this great green earth, to handle the hard parts."

"Yep, that's right. You just gotta remind him his place. Want one of us to talk to him about it?"

“Or maybe his boss. Maybe we could get the boss to let him go,” came the next brilliant suggestion. Stiles stared at them, slack-jawed, shocked.

“Ricky would be pissed, no way,” said the blonde woman, and that was the smartest thing any of them had said yet. Her friends whined a little about it because Ricky was obviously hurting their friend by denying her family wishes at the time. But they gradually wandered off the topic. By then, Stiles was waiting for new proof that the world hated him, hated anyone like him, and the conversation had him primed and triggered. He still snooped, listening to the boring, trite details of the foursome’s day. Between omega spouses - two of the four had married an omega each, which hurt Stiles’ soul to learn - and their normal daily lives, it was a miracle any of them survived, because obviously the lazy significant other just couldn’t get it right. Stiles chewed angrily at the straw in his glass more than he actually managed to drink any of it.

Blondie reported that Ricky made terrible coffee and hadn’t bothered to clean the kitchen in actual days and Stiles nearly bit the straw in half. Unfortunately by then one of her friends had noticed him.

“Hey. There a problem?” the guy called over to Stiles. The bar wasn’t too crowded, the jukebox wasn’t loud, and Stiles stood less than five feet away, face contorted as he mangled a straw and tried to keep quiet. It didn’t take much volume to get Stiles’ attention under the circumstances. He still pretended not to have heard; somehow or another he forgot along the way that he was a bad liar.

“Hey!” the man repeated, his bar stool scraping across the dirty wood floor. Stiles figured that was the best clue he would get that he wasn’t invisible and he finally looked over at them.

“I dunno, I just can’t figure out if you’re talking about a human being over there or some kind of Roomba Vac or something, you know? Whether the guy _wants_ to clean the kitchen every day doesn’t really seem to matter much, so it’s a little _confusing_ ,” he said. Stiles Stilinski was a terrible liar and also really bad at keeping his mouth shut.

“Oh, is that all?” asked Blondie’s friend. He looked back at the group he had come with, a bitter laugh to go along with the smug grin. “Looks like we offended the little omega over there. Maybe we should leave."

"Hell no. I'm not moving because of some butthurt omega," said the man's friend with a scoff. "He shouldn't be here anyway. Somebody somewhere is probably waiting for him to bring them a sandwich."

There was thankfully too much distance between Stiles and where the man sat at the end of the bar. He couldn't punch them. Derek had been lazily teaching him how to defend himself a little better, but it was a little difficult for the guy because Stiles didn't have claws and teeth to rely on so they didn't start off from equal stances. But the dumbass in the bar didn't have claws either and Stiles wanted to knock him off the bar stool. He was just too far away.

So Stiles threw his drink in their faces instead. That worked _like a charm_.

It was nice to watch three people's face contort in disgust as coke dripped down their noses in colored splotches. Stiles smiled a little for all of two seconds before the guys started toward him with obvious intent to commit murder. Then Stiles had his fight.

In a fight against a couple of soft desk jockeys, Stiles had the experience points on his side. He had taken a fire extinguisher to a werewolf when he was sixteen. He had gone up against hunters who _hunted humans_ , a Darach who fought with magic, and survived an evil Nogitsune getting inside his head and a couple of psychopaths who wanted him dead. Stiles had learned a few things. Like how to tackle a douche-bag to the dirty, drink-strewn bar floor and not get hurt, or smeared with sticky floor-booze. And how to dodge when the second guy tried to punch him in the head for it.

One of the men caught his ankle and yanked, tripping him as he tried to move away. Stiles fell and hit his forehead on a bar-stool on the way down. Then he threw the bar-stool at the guy who had tripped him. He got his feet under him in time for the second guy to help him upright so he could drag a fist across his face.

It randomly occurred to Stiles' brain as he staggered into the high table that his under-aged self was in _a bar fight_. The omega purists could stuff that up their noses and let it lodge in their brains. Stiles came back up smiling and swinging. He managed to cut the other guy across the cheek with a hard blow before the bar bouncers showed up to drag them apart. Stiles' smug grin didn't fade as he was lectured to about fighting and sat in a corner where the bartender could watch over the pissed off omega while the other two fighters were asked to leave the bar entirely.

"Who are you here with?" The bar's owner had come over and glared at Stiles, all crossed arms over a portly stomach. Stiles just grinned at that.

"No one. I'm here on my own. It's so scandalous, right?" He had to try not to laugh. His knee bounced. Definitely had a bit of an adrenaline buzz going. It was kind of awesome.

"Then who do we call to come get you?" The man said. "We can't have you stirring up trouble in here but you just pissed people off enough that I can't have you walking out of here unattended. It's dangerous."

"Oh my god I don't actually care," said Stiles. He felt something tickle at his lip and poked at it with his fingers. It should not have made him so happy to learn he had a split lip but he stared at the blood like a trophy. He had taken on all manner of supernatural forces in the last two years and it was a goddamn bar fight putting some omegaist, misogynist jerk in his place that Stiles was proud of at the moment. His own little uprising. In a filthy dive bar. In San Francisco. The bar owner looked at him like he was insane. Maybe he was.

It took some work but Stiles convinced the owner he was sober and could leave on his own. By then twenty minutes had passed and it wasn't very likely the foursome from the fight had stuck around to pounce him from a dark alley. Stiles walked away with the very firm "I don't want to see you in my place again, kid," following after him.

That only amused Stiles more because he was going home. He wasn't going to stick around San Francisco and omega-up the dive bars. But the concern that he _might_ was amusing.

"Weak omega, my ass," he muttered to himself. "They can make their own damn sandwiches."

 

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> co-author's warning: This is a fairly upsetting/depressing section. You might like to get yourself a blanket and some hot chocolate before venturing further...
> 
> _______

The adrenaline was a mixed blessing. Stiles was in a good mood when he walked away from the bar, a napkin to the cut on his forehead from when he had hit the table. Concussion was possible, maybe, but he couldn’t tell because he was jittery from the fight still. It also kept him from recognizing that someone was following him until he was nearly to his jeep. He didn’t know for sure but he didn’t want to lead a stranger to his car.; the old monster stood out and he didn’t want followed home. He was possibly being paranoid, but he couldn’t tell because he was still amped up from his success at the bar fight. It was hard to trust his instincts just then.

Not sure how best to handle a potential stalker - and he couldn’t exactly call his dad for advice since he had already pissed his dad off enough for the day, _and_ he didn’t want the distraction - Stiles ducked into a small corner grocery store to let the person pass. When they didn’t keep walking, instead followed him into the store, Stiles had to find an excuse for being in there. He found a candy bar and a bag of chips and a soda and meandered around the store with them, waiting for the person to leave. He hadn’t gotten a very good look at the man, just saw the tan jacket and the jeans and a backwards baseball cap. Everything else about him had been in shadows outside and Stiles tried not to look at him when he was inside, because he was just paranoid and there was no reason to call attention to himself by staring.

“You okay, dude?” the cashier asked as Stiles set the junk food down on the counter. He nodded like he meant the cuts on Stiles’ face. “We’ve got some, you know, first-aid stuff on aisle three.”

Stiles was pretty sure he blushed. He just grinned a little and shook his head. “Nope, I’m fine. Pretty great.”

The cashier didn’t look convinced but he didn’t say anything. With a few more _beeps_ from the register, Stiles had his munchies tucked in a bag and made his way out of the store. Unfortunately the stalker reappeared, carrying a store-bag of his own. It was definitely no longer simple paranoia. It was definitely a stalker. Living in a small town where everybody knew him as the sheriff’s kid, stalkers weren’t a thing Stiles had ever had to deal with before. At least, not of the non-supernatural variety. The supernatural ones, Stiles liked to think he could yell for a werewolf and be safe. (That was, of course, an absolute self-delusion because the werewolves probably were the stalkers, and if it wasn’t them, historically, hanging out with werewolves tended to get the hunters pissed off at him, and it was all suddenly very obvious that Stiles needed a new circle of friends.)

But the non-supernatural stalkers were an entirely new thing. They didn’t have claws. And Stiles had just started and technically won a bar brawl. So he stopped in his tracks and turned to deal with the stalker the same way.

“Hey... there a problem?” he asked, trying to sound like he could do something about it if there was. He had a bag of chips he could attack the guy with if he had to. The man following him stopped in front of him, a shy grin on his face, like he hadn’t been _creeping_ two seconds ago.

“No problem,” the guy said. He held up the bag he carried. “I just... wanted to buy you a drink.”

That was the last thing Stiles expected to hear. He had even less of an idea what to do with that scenario than he'd had with the possibility of a stalker.

"I... Uh..." He mentally got stuck, too surprised.

"Can I walk you home at least?" asked the stalker. Stiles blinked at him. That was at least easy to sort out.

"I don't live here, so that's a big _no_ ," he said.

"Then can I go with you, wherever you're going?"

Despite his every instinct still telling Stiles to run, there was something sweet about the offer. The guy had a nice face and his smile hit Stiles right in the low belly and did unwelcome warm things to the rest of him. If he had asked in the bar, Stiles would have been all over that. Now though... Not so much. Stiles took a breath, shook his head.

"Thanks but no, man. I just got in a fight. I want to go home, get some ice, you know," he said. He motioned to the cuts on his face to back up his excuse. But the man stepped closer, tugged a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the bag and held it carefully up to Stiles' face along the bruise at his cheek. It was cool, but glass made for a hard ice pack. And the stranger was most definitely in Stiles' space.

"See?" The creeper said. He amped up the smile like he was telling a joke. "A drink or two can make it better."

Stiles took the bottle just to make the guy let go and then stepped back. The guy caught his shoulder, trying to be friendly, and turned him back the way they had been walking before. "Come on. I'll get you to your car at least."

That was definitely not okay and Stiles shrugged out of his grasp. The guy changed his hold a little, slipping an arm over his shoulder.

"Don't be like that. I just want to make sure you get to your car safe," the man said. "You were just in a fight and everything..."

They came to the end of the street then and a car pulled up at the corner, idled just in front of them. "Is this your car?" the man asked, waving to the dark-colored SUV. As the pieces fell into place, Stiles reacted. He shoved his elbow into the man's side, hard and pointy and backed it up with the rest of his weight pushing into him to knock him into the car. Panic fueled the fear and Stiles took off running, absolutely blind because he had no idea where he was, in completely foreign territory in a city miles and miles away from home. He dodged down a walking path alleyway behind a business and jumped a fence, the stranger only yards behind him. Running away from danger was at least somewhat familiar to him, between lacrosse and hunters and supernatural creatures.

Coming around a corner ahead of his stalker, Stiles ducked into somebody's garage because the door was open. He hid like a kid playing hide and seek, finding one dark corner that seemed to work but then dodging to any other that seemed safer, watching the street the whole time. The dark SUV drove by, slow and scanning for him with a cell-phone flashlight. Then the guy from the sidewalk jogged right past. Stiles hid behind a stack of dusty boxes marked _CHRISTMAS!_ and tried to catch his breath, tried not to panic. He slumped to the ground, hugging a bottle of Jack Daniels as he waited to be sure the danger passed.

The day seriously couldn't get any worse.

 

***

 

The day got worse, but only in the predictable, ironic sense of things. Rain pounded down on the windshield and the temp in the cab had dropped as soon as Stiles crossed the bridge. It was hard to really tell how much of his problems with the wipers were because of the rain or just because his life had chosen to make that day hurt in particularly vicious ways. So he made it out of the city and found a rest area overlooking Lodi, parked and stared across the bay at the dark hulking hills and the distant shadow of the skyline. The adrenaline let-down had his hands still shaking, but maybe that was just from the cold.

His phone said his dad had called twice so Stiles turned the sound back on and tossed it on the seat beside him. The bottle of alcohol from his would-be kidnapper sat there too. That was his gift from the cosmos that day, Stiles figured, so he popped the top and drank freely. His dad was on his way to yell at him, so he didn't have to drive. He just wanted to relax before he had to deal with it. The problem was, he could drink but he couldn't shut off his brain.

Stiles had gone entire years of his life ignoring the problems presented by some stupid, magic disease - a fae _blessing_ , if the crackpot hippie lady was to be believed - and then suddenly, _BAMN_ it was everywhere in his face. Out of nowhere, like a freight train barreled through to smash his life to shreds. Then his day in the big city on his own had done a wonderful job of showing him that it had always been there, always on target to smash into him. Stiles had just been really good at running to stay ahead of it, until the day he wasn’t.

The Omega issue was real, it was everywhere around him, just invisible because he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to acknowledge it because he wanted to do his own thing, he didn't want to have to worry about fitting in and playing games. Stiles Stilinski wanted to grow up and be a cop, he wanted to help people like his dad did and he wanted to always be able to protect his friends. That was what he worked for. That was what he wanted out of life. Maybe a side bonus of always keeping his game collection current and he definitely always wanted to kick digital ass.

It wasn't a lot to ask for out of a life except he had to work twice as hard to get anywhere when nobody wanted to give him credit for what he did accomplish. Because he was an Omega, because he wasn't supposed to end up somewhere he wanted to be, because his genetic code decided to screw him over and side with society's demands that he stand aside and play a support-only role. He was the sidekick, doomed to be the pissed off Robin to somebody else's Batman. And thanks to fae magic, he was a Robin who not only found all the trouble, but he could even lay eggs! _Awesome_.

It hurt. His face hurt, his head hurt, his hands hurt, and that was fine. He didn’t care about the fight because he got hit worse from lacrosse practice. But everything else hurt in his chest when he breathed and in his mind when he thought and it was stuck on a loop, just digging deeper every time it went around. Before the werewolves had shown up, there was stuff Stiles worked for, and after they tried to kill him, he had still kept on track. He faced shitty odds but he had stayed on the track. Now, because he had pissed off a lawyer two years ago, because he had tried to just have fun for once, everything had been derailed. It was even his own fault, he couldn’t blame Scott or Derek or anybody. That hurt. It was a weird kind of pain, like he had felt when his mom died, or when he thought he had lost his dad a few times over the past two years. It was a familiar pain and he didn’t like it.

So he chased it down with the whiskey he had been so politely given. He drank straight from the bottle and watched the rain and tried to think about the bitter, warm burn of the alcohol instead of the whatever-it-was that hurt everywhere else.

 

***

 

Jordan Parrish had seen a lot of weird things over the last year. He couldn’t even begin to _name_ them all, they were just too weird. A year in and he hadn’t fully wrapped his mind around it to be able to explain any of it. But he knew why he was drawn to Beacon Hills now: because without the world of the weird that the Sheriff and his spastic son occupied, Jordan would still be working some big-city beat and probably half insane because maybe some perp had lit him on fire and he had survived, without a single clue that there were forces in the world that could explain it while still _defying_ all explanation. It was a big convoluted mess, but at least in Beacon Hills Jordan wasn’t the only one looking for answers to the mess. The Sheriff was trying to figure everything out the same as he was, and he had resources, and he had done everything he could to help Jordan figure out whatever it was that had messed with his ability to, well, _die_.

So after all of the supernatural brouhaha that Jordan had seen the sheriff deal with, it was almost comical to watch the man lose his sanity because his nearly eighteen year old son had run away to San Francisco for the day. It was just San Francisco. Yeah, the big city was a bigger city than Beacon Hills, and sure, maybe there were supernatural weird-things lurking in the Bay Area, but none of them would have a target painted on Stiles Stilinski. He was just a normal kid, there was nothing weird about him that wasn’t the product of boring human genetics. But Sheriff Stilinski was practically crawling the walls of the SUV as they drove to the city to find Stiles. He kept checking his phone and then swearing at it, because he wasn’t familiar with the app that they were using to keep track of Stiles’ location.

As the driver, Jordan didn’t bother with the app or the maps. He didn’t need to. He had grown up in the Bay, and he happened to know the bar the app had shown him back in Beacon Hills. It wasn’t a really great neighborhood, but Stiles was a scrappy kid. He could handle a low-key bar like that one just fine. The bigger concern for Deputy Parrish was what they were going to do if they got to the not-yet-eighteen year old and found him drunk off his ass in a bar like he had promised his dad he would be. The sheriff was in no state to arrest his own son, but if the bar had really served him any alcohol, they were on a very fine line not reporting both the teenager and the bar to the local authorities. It was a rather surreal position for Jordan, potentially having to arrest his boss’ son right under his nose.

“Look, Sheriff. We’re almost there, alright? Just one more bridge to cross and we’re at that bar. Then you can kick his ass like you said, and it’ll be fine,” said Jordan. He was calm and tried not to be amused. He sobered a little. “Stiles will be fine. There’s nothing the city can throw at him that could possibly be worse than werewolves, right? Or Eichen House.”

“Don’t even mention that place,” the sheriff warned. He shook his head and tapped at his phone again. “It’s not the whole weird werewolf thing I’m worried about here. It’s him. It’s all my kid this time. The stupid ambush at the school today caused this. I don’t know how to fix it, he doesn’t know how to fix it...”

“What ambush- somebody ambushed Stiles at the school?” asked Jordan, confused. “The high school?”

“Yeah, a nosey lawyer, the superintendent of schools, and the principal all three. They put him on the Omega Track. Just basically ruined every shot he’s got at getting into the academy,” said the sheriff. He gave a dismissive wave toward the front window, like he would rather have been inflicting physical harm on the trio who had ambushed his kid. “They kicked him out of his AP classes for setting a bad example and locked him in this IEP for the next six months, and if he blows it off they’ll hold him back. So they ambushed my kid and now he’s god knows where in San Francisco-”

Jordan Parrish actually took his eyes off the road, in the rain, in light Wednesday evening traffic, to stare at his boss in the passenger seat. “They put him on the Omega Track? Stiles? Your - _Stiles_?”

Sheriff Stilinski sighed and nodded. “Don’t... say anything to anyone. He’s not taking it well. Obviously. So since he’s suspended, I’m probably going to have to keep him at the station for the next week. I just don’t think he’ll want it getting around.”

“I didn’t know,” said Jordan. That was the last thing he had expected. Stiles was just every kind of wrong personality for what Jordan expected from the omegas. Jordan’s dad was nothing like Stiles. His dad didn’t know about werewolves, for one thing. And for another, Jordan just couldn’t see Stiles ever settling down as a carpenter. The images didn’t line up in his head at all.

“Well, yeah, the meeting was just today. Rumor mill tends to work a little slower than that,” said Sheriff Stilinski.

“No, I mean about Stiles,” said Parrish, distracted. “After everything else this year, I never would have figured-”

“Yeah, he doesn’t fit the profile,” said Stilinski. He didn’t seem happy with the conversation so Jordan tried to get his brain out of the shocked stupor and back onto anything that could distract the man from the fact that his omega son had run away to one of the shady parts of the big city.

That’s when it dawned on Parrish that his boss’ omega son had run away to one of the shady parts of San Francisco.

“Oh. Shit! Where was that bar he’s at again?” Jordan asked. He inched the accelerator a little further and switched lanes, launching them out onto the last bridge with the windshield wipers working double-time. His hand itched toward the switch to turn on the light-bar and the wagglers to clear their lane. Stiles could handle werewolves and weird stuff maybe, but there were parts of town an omega shouldn’t wander into by himself, and Stiles had definitely found one.

“Well that’s the stupid thing I’m trying to figure out,” complained the sheriff, obviously frustrated and ready to toss the phone out the window. “The map changed away from the city and it won’t go back. Now it keeps showing me this place on the other side of the bay from where it was earlier. Out in the goddamn middle of nowhere it looks like, and I can’t get it to give me the address again...”

“That means he moved, Sheriff,” said Jordan. And it didn’t sound like a good location shift considering Stiles had told his dad he planned to get drunk. “Are there coordinates? We can search coordinates if the map won’t-”

In his peripheral vision, the sheriff was swiping across the screen and reentering information and all-sheriff, his normal work-calm kicking in past the fear for his son apparently. Jordan went quiet and waited, trying to let the man work. They crossed into the city then and passed turn offs, making him itchy because they were getting steadily shoved along by traffic and potentially further from where they needed to be to find Stiles. But he still pointed the SUV toward the last known location of the sheriff’s son.

“Damnit, found him,” said the sheriff suddenly. “I’m gonna kill him if he’s really there. Hell, I’ll kill him if he’s not there and we just find his phone - for godsakes...”

“Sheriff? I need to know where to go,” said Jordan, forced patience coloring his tone more than he had meant to let slip out. The sheriff waved him off.

“We gotta turn around. He’s back a half an hour toward home already. But it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere,” he said. That wasn’t good news and they both knew it. Jordan did flip the lights then and he crossed four lanes of traffic with hardly a glance in the rearview to catch the next exit that would get him to the East bound freeway.

 

***


	7. Chapter 7

Drinking alcohol without first having a complete and wholesome dinner had two drawbacks. Drawback the first: the body decided it needed to get all emotionally dependent on the nearest toilet. It was raining, Stiles could probably get away with sticking close to the car, but he had parked under a light so there was really no escaping the necessity of walking all the way across the parking lot to the restroom buildings. He wasn’t drunk enough to overlook the whole arrested-for-public-indecency while also being criminally under the legal drinking age. He just wasn’t and it really wasn’t fair.

Then there was drawback the second: Stiles was pretty well past buzzed. Bad ideas were things of the past and all he had in front of him were good ideas flavored by bitter pain. So the good idea in his hand just then was a ringing cell phone connection with a derpy picture of Derek on the screen getting dripped on by rain. Oh, yeah, it was raining. Like somebody upstairs had taken a galactic fire-hose and stood up on a cloud just stringing their harp and watering the lilies way far down below. But not too far down, because Stiles was pretty sure it didn’t rain in hell, and he couldn’t actually be there. He had taken a right turn to get off the freeway and the jeep hadn’t gone down any stairs, no elevators, just a right on the off-ramp.

There was an elevator to get to Derek’s place, but he was pretty sure the jeep wouldn’t fit on it. The thought that he maybe wanted to try was quickly squashed by the realization that Derek would kill him for scuffing up the lobby floor with the jeep tires like that because the man owned the building and he probably would definitely kill him. Teeth would be involved. It would be a blood-bath of werewolfian proportions-

“Stiles?”

“No I didn’t do anything to the elevator!” Stiles blurted quickly. “I mean I thought about it but I didn’t mean it and blood baths were not involved-”

“Stiles? Are you drunk?” Derek interrupted him again and it dawned on Stiles that the sourwolf wasn’t in his head, he was just on the phone and talking. That explained how his voice got in Stiles’ head pretty well. It took him a moment to process the question Derek had asked.

“It is a distinct possibility,” Stiles said after a moment to weigh out the pros and cons of it. He wanted to be drunk. “Drunk in the park with Scott doesn’t feel like this, though, dude. I am so far from happy. I want to be happy. That’s why I opened this stupid bottle and I’m not happy. I am anti-happy. I am- wait. No, I am pro-happy, but I am really, really not happy, and it isn’t fair because I didn’t do anything.”

There was a long pause again and Stiles checked the phone to be sure Derek was still there. He was, because he asked where Stiles was. And Stiles told him all about the empty rest area parking lot. And the rain. He could have written an essay on the rain as he stared up at it falling from the sky on his face.

“Then where did you get the alcohol?”

“From the asshole who tried to shove me in the SUV. I hid in somebody’s garage but I kept the-”

“Somebody tried to shove you in an SUV? Stiles! What’s going on?” Derek interrupted him again. Stiles blinked and squinted at the rain and tried to keep up.

“What?”

“Where are you? I’m going to go pick you up,” said Derek.

“No you’re not. My dad is. He said he’d - well, he didn’t actually say he would but I kinda- I mean, shit I was a jerk so he’ll be here-”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, yeah. It’s _my dad_...”

“Then why did you call _me_?”

That... was an important question. It did dangerous things to Stiles sobriety levels when combined with the cold rain on his face. He felt a little less buzzy and the sad pain hugged back around his ribs. It was entirely unfair.

“I don’t- I mean. It’s been a shitty day and I just...” Stiles stopped talking, trying to remember what had made him call Derek. “Well Scott wouldn’t answer his phone and I needed to talk to somebody.”

“But you promise me that you’re okay?” asked Derek, quick on the loophole. “You can talk all you want as long as you’re not-”

“No, I’m not okay, Derek, or I wouldn’t freakin’ be calling people in the rain,” said Stiles. “Just no. It’s not okay.”

“Are you safe?”

“Oh my gawd I’m fine, Derek! I just said that!”

“So shoot me, Stiles,” returned Derek. “You’re not exactly making sense at the moment. I’m just trying-”

“I don’t have to make sense all the time, damnit,” said Stiles. “I mean, I’m human, right? I’m allowed to screw up? I’m allowed to have fun and not always do exactly what I’m supposed to do?”

“You never do what you’re supposed to do. You’re a bag of cats. You’re just going to do your thing and the rest of us get to sit on the other end of a phone line wondering if you’re really safe or just lying again,” said Derek.

“You jerk, I’m not lying,” returned Stiles.

“You’re not telling me anything, either,” Derek reminded him. Stiles went quiet, guilty. Derek stayed quiet, too, but Stiles didn't worry he had hung up. He stared out at the distant city skyline and got a different kind of anxious.

"I didn't call to tell you anything," Stiles said finally. He swung his arm around, flapping and flailing out of frustration. "I just wanted to talk to somebody who'd get it. I mean, I just spent the whole day by myself in the city. Because I'm not a freak here. Except nobody freaking saw me, either."

"Next time then, come find me. Don't go anywhere by yourself. You shouldn't. If something happens, you-"

"Seriously, Derek? You're going to hit me with the fragile 'mega crap now?" Stiles interrupted.

"No? It's not that-"

"Come on," grumbled Stiles. He punched to end the call rather than listen to a werewolf back-pedal. He almost threw his phone but shoved it in his pocket instead, otherwise it would have been launched off the overlook toward the distant city. He was sober enough now to recognize that was a bad idea.

"I just wanted _one!"_ he shouted at the sky. Because obviously it was the rain's fault the world had turned on him. "Just _one!"_

It didn't do him any good. The rain still poured down. Everything beyond the little splash of lamp light around the jeep was black until it touched the city lights at the base of the hill. Behind him sat an empty parking lot and a hazy glowing rest area, then the rush of the highway. Seriously. Nobody cared.

 

***

 

Yellow suddenly glowed reflected off the dry grass of the hillside in front of him and Stiles turned away from the city lights to squint into the brighter car lights behind him. He recognized the paint job of the familiar sheriff’s cruiser and was at once relieved and still ready to run. He couldn’t make up his mind which and just stood at the curb like an idiot. His dad jumped out of the passenger side - that was a bit of a surprise - and was suddenly in front of him. Stiles blinked at him, trying to adjust after the headlights blinded him but also trying to sort out how his dad had moved quite that fast. He stared at his dad as he caught his cheeks in his hands, careful of the scrapes, checking the obvious injuries because that was just a dad thing, and his dad’s face was so worried. Stiles felt guilty for worrying him, possibly depriving him of years and years of his life from a stupid phone call that Stiles knew he shouldn’t have made. He just needed a ride home...

"What the hell happened?" his dad asked. It took a second for the question to break past the apology Stiles was trying to figure out how to word in his head. Stiles shook his head to dismiss it because the what happened wasn’t that important compared to the number of gray hairs he had put on his dad’s head that night.

"Somebody said something about omegas popping out babies and I started a fight...” Stiles paused as he realized what he had just said out loud. The reality of it took him by surprise then because it was the first time he had really thought about what he had done in the context of something his dad would care about. His head hurt, the buzz long gone from the rain and fresh air, and his dad stood there staring at him. All worried. But Stiles let out a half-insane laugh and caught at his dad’s jacket, like he was nine years old trying to get the guy’s attention. “In a bar! I started a fight in a bar, Dad!"

"You're not in a bar," his dad said, ever the skeptic. “You’re here and the jeep-”

 "Nope. I didn't drink and drive. I left. I'm good." The bottle of whiskey sat still half full on the jeep hood and Stiles held it up. His dad narrowed his eyes and Stiles quickly put the bottle in his dad’s hand. The sheriff squared his shoulders and eyed the bottle and the jeep.

 "You left and came straight here? _Before_ you had a drink from this?"

 "Yup." That answer fell fully under Stiles’ usual definition of acceptable lying. His dad shook the bottle a little.

 "Where'd you get the bottle of booze?" he asked. There wasn’t an easy way to dodge that question. Stiles blinked at him, stalling, cursing alcohol because he was taking too long to think up a lie. He knew he needed to lie on the origin story for the whiskey. The truth would just make his dad worry more. If Derek had gotten pissed off about it, his dad would have a heart attack. It had been a shitty day and Stiles didn’t really honestly want to end the day on worrying his dad about just that one more thing.

 "Stiles... What happened?" his dad pressed. Stiles shook his head and shrugged it off. He still didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make it worse.

 "People are jerks," he finally said. His dad nodded like he understood and for a second Stiles thought he had gotten away with the simple answer. He didn’t.

 "How'd you get the whiskey?" came the question. In that moment, Stiles swore off ever drinking again because he should not have been so confused about coming up with a good lie for acquiring a bottle of whiskey. He could have said he bought it and gotten away with it but that didn’t occur to him.

Instead, he had the fight going through his mind and then the creeper with the bottle of whiskey. The time he should have fought, gotten in a punch that was worth something instead of prying into some drunks at a bar, he ran. Running was smart because he knew he could do that. Except he had run because he was afraid, not because he was smart, not because he was standing up for something shitty in his world that needed a few heads bashed in to fix it. He had been scared, like a little kid. And it seemed to catch up to him then, with his dad right there and worried about him, that Stiles hadn’t actually been safe. For all nothing had happened all day, no supernatural nasties jumping out, nobody hassling him at the park or at the bookstore, he hadn’t been safe on his own.

 Something of the realization must have hit his face then because his dad set the bottle on the jeep and reached to draw him into a hug. Stiles caught his dad around the shoulders and held on tight, not sure how else to deal just then with everything. He was mad and he was disappointed and he was scared and he was relieved and he didn’t have words for any of it. A breath staggered out as a sob and he realized he was crying, the rain otherwise doing a good job of confusing that truth into silence. Stiles tucked his face into his shoulder and cinched his arms a little tighter around his dad.

“Come on,” his dad finally said, quiet and unhappy. “Let’s get you home.”

 

***

 

It took them longer than planned to figure out where the little GPS dot was telling them to go. The rain was messing with it or something, and it just plain didn’t make sense. Neither the sheriff or his deputy behind the wheel would have expected Stiles to end up at a rest area just off the highway. Then they found the jeep and Stiles at the back of a parking lot, under the lamp like a big target, standing in the rain. The kid looked nothing like his usual self.

Jordan thought back to a year earlier, to the nogitsune that had terrorized the sheriff’s department, the toll that had taken on Stiles physically to deal with all of that. Standing in the rain like a drowned rat, there were a few differences but Parrish had to blink to see them through the water on the windshield. He could hear what was said for the most part, not really surprised, but he knew the scenario well enough. A kid got busted breaking all of the rules. It just happened that the kid had every rational reason to, considering everything he had been through. The supernatural wasn’t enough. Even Stiles had to learn how to deal with the humanity at the end of the day, and that was no cake-walk.

The cruiser was still running, the lights still on so that Jordan could help keep watch as the sheriff sorted out his son. He wasn’t really expecting the sheriff to load Stiles into the front seat of the SUV and walk him through buckling his seatbelt.

“He’s soaked through to the bone,” the sheriff said, looking over at Jordan as Stiles grappled with the seat belt, completely uncoordinated. “If you’ll get him home, I’ll get the jeep back. But the heater in that thing is shit and the last thing this kid needs is pneumonia.”

Even as Jordan nodded, Stiles complained. The sheriff cut him off, tone frustrated as he told him to buckle up and quiet down. Stiles slumped into the leather and crammed the belt buckle into the latch. Jordan watched his boss tousle his nearly-grown son’s hair and press a kiss to his forehead like he was just a kid. Stiles sunk a little lower in the seat as the door closed. It dropped him down into the splash of light from the parking lot lamp outside, showing off a split lip and bruises forming along another cut at the side of his face. Jordan leaned forward over the steering wheel a little, trying to get a better look as much as trying to get Stiles’ attention.

“What happened?” he asked. He forgot himself for a moment, asking the question like he expected an answer, a little too used to dealing with troublemakers. It seemed like Stiles took offense because he didn’t answer right away.

“I got in a fight at a bar and some creep tried to shove me in a get-away-stalker-van,” Stiles said finally. There was no part of that story that Jordan had fully expected and it must have shown on his face because his passenger faced him a little more directly, sat up just enough. “And don’t even think about telling my dad I just said that. Do not-”

That was a moral dilemma, to report the incident to his boss or to hold the trust he had been given by the man’s son. _Omega_ son. Omega son who had almost been kidnapped. Parrish shoved down the initial impulse and reminded himself he had a two hour drive ahead of him with an edgy, half-drunk Stiles in the passenger seat.

“I think you can handle yourself alright against creeps, that I’ve seen,” Jordan finally said, trying to keep the peace. Stiles went still, stared at him before apparently judging the peace offering as what it was. He set his jaw and slumped against the window. Outside, the sheriff had gotten the jeep going and pulled out of the spot, hanging back and waiting for Parrish to lead the way. The deputy left Stiles to himself and they started their trek back toward Beacon Hills.

Out on the highway, entire minutes of silence passed. Considering one of the few things Jordan knew about the sheriff’s son was that the kid didn’t shut up very easily, it seemed like an ominous sign. He glanced over at his passenger and saw that the quiet wasn’t because Stiles had fallen asleep; he stared out the window and sat curled in on himself.

"Are you hurt?" Jordan asked him.

"It was just a fight," said Stiles, not looking at him. The strange quiet didn’t match up and the deputy had to work to keep his mind from filling in all the blanks with the worst-case scenarios. He could only imagine how the sheriff must be handling it, stuck in the jeep and trusting Jordan to get Stiles home safe. But it was hard to fight training, and the new knowledge that Stiles was an omega did nothing to squash the concern.

"Like a fight at school or a _fight_ with Brunski?" he asked. It was maybe a low blow but it worked, Stiles looked over at him then, proved he was still alive in there. Alive and a little pissed, but responsive.

"Seriously? What the hell do you care?" Stiles shot back at him. There was more he probably would have said but he looked like he wasn’t quite sober enough for it. Stiles was aware enough to be mad, aware enough to recognize his surroundings and who he was with, determine who he trusted or didn’t, but not enough to make the words in his head come out right; Parrish knew the feeling as well as he knew the signs. He knew, too, that he had Stiles’ attention then.

"I care because I just spent the last few hours listening to your dad worry about you,” Jordan said. Maybe he could prod Stiles out of the funk, because it was unnatural, and the guy deserved better. It had always stumped him growing up when his parents got low, his dad especially, and Stiles sulking in the passenger seat was hitting all the same confusion points. So if the sheriff was going to trust him with the care of his kid, Jordan had to at least try to get him back home in a better condition than he was passed off in.

“And it's not fair what happened. It sucks. But it's not the end of the world. You can handle werewolves and banshees and fox-demons, alright? And actual psychos,” Jordan pointed out, trying to get through. “Some stupid school bureaucrat isn't going to hurt you, Stiles. You and your dad won't let that happen. But you can hurt yourself, obviously, and that's stupid. You're smart. So yeah, _Stiles_ , what the hell _do you_ care about a bunch of stuffed shirts who don't know you?"

Stiles went quiet after that. Jordan didn't have to look over to tell that his passenger glared at him. It was injured pride, Parrish had seen plenty of similar expressions on perps over the last few years. He had that effect on people, dropping the hard truths. Common sense wasn't so common, as his dad liked to point out, and people sometimes forgot to prioritize. But it wasn't what Parrish had grown to expect from Sheriff Stilinski's son.

If he was honest, Jordan didn't know what to say to make Stiles calm down. The kid was still upset, a soaking, shivering wet mess. He had even given up on trying to play with his phone, with nowhere to put it that wasn't wet. The phone sat on the cruiser's laptop rig just off the dashboard, wedged in securely so it wouldn't slide around. Which proved Stiles wasn't as drunk as he could have been if he was worried about the fate of his phone on a car ride. Small favors, Jordan figured, because maybe that meant he wouldn’t be pulling over any time soon to let Stiles out to puke on the side of the highway. The sheriff following behind them would love that. But it was no less weird, driving an absolutely silent Stiles back to Beacon Hills.

“It’s going to work out okay,” Jordan promised him. He glanced over at the sulking passenger in time to see the glare at the dashboard somehow intensify in the dark. “No, I mean it, man. This isn’t some kind of death sentence-”

“Okay, fine, you saved my life once and my dad made you help him out this time, but that doesn’t get you a free-pass into what’s wrong with my life now,” Stiles interrupted.

“There’s nothing wrong-”

“Yeah there is. I don’t get to do what I want. You wanted to be a cop? You want to help people? Yeah, so what if tomorrow somebody said you can’t? Said you’re supposed to sit by yourself in somebody else’s house and give them kids and not help anybody,” Stiles cut in. He was actually inconsolable, maybe not a crying mess but an angry one. “That is not anything okay.”

“That’s not what it’s about though,” Jordan returned quickly. “My dad has his own business. He knows people. He’s not trapped in my mom’s house, Stiles. He’s still important. So _you_ are fully capable of whatever-”

“I don’t care. The thing I want, I can’t have,” said Stiles. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what that was, but before Jordan could get the words out, Stiles lurched out of his slouch and started digging around the door pocket. “I want food.”

With a huff of amusement at the left-field demand, Parrish reached for the dashboard glove-box. “I think your dad’s got some candy bars-”

Stiles dove for the dash, grumbling about the injustice of his father hoarding candy bars when his father was supposed to be on a healthy-food-only diet. He was in and out of it with his trophy before Jordan had even found one of the Power bars he thought were in there, so Stiles caught his hand and pulled it to safety before shutting the box again. It seemed to be an automatic thing, the kid didn’t even seem to notice, and he slunk back into his corner between the passenger seat and the window to break into the food.

“Better now?” asked Jordan. Stiles shrugged.

“Just find something else to talk about and I’ll be great,” said Stiles.

“That’s not exactly the truth,” Jordan pointed out. His passenger nodded.

“It’s the one we’re going with until I get home.”

Given that Jordan wanted to help, not make things worse, he accepted the order and kept his attention on the road. Stiles did seem to settle down though; the little black rain cloud he had brought with him from outside in the storm was still sulking over his head but it had stopped threatening lightning bolts and monsoons. The heater was on and every vent aimed at Stiles so the kid was slowly drying off. The glare faded and he seemed to be nodding off so Jordan left him alone to his quiet. He did, however, remember the water bottle unopened in the compartment on the driver’s door and pried that out to pass over to Stiles.

“You might want this,” he said. Stiles took it but didn’t open it, just hugged it to his chest and drew his knees up, wet shoes on the seat. Parrish didn’t say anything about that and kept his attention on the whole driving part of the deal. He would drive Stiles back home and Stiles would pretend he was great. That was better than nothing.

“Always the pretty people, so damn annoying,” muttered Stiles eventually. That was random so Jordan looked over, but his passenger appeared to be asleep. He hadn’t relaxed any yet the intense frown had eased at least. Stiles didn’t look happy in his doze but he wasn’t in the same kind of pain. They had been on the highway nearly a half hour so Jordan signaled and slipped out of the fast lane, slowing down to buy Stiles a little more time for his nap. He apparently needed it.

 

***


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles didn't remember the drive home or getting himself to bed. His dad said it was because he refused to wake up for either one but that couldn't be right. The primary problem with that logic was that Stiles had woken himself up around five AM just fine, right in time to stumble to the bathroom and pray his head didn't explode at the same time.

At six AM, when his dad tried to wake him, he reasoned that he drank more alcohol than he ate real food. He also knew quite clearly that his head hurt and he was pretty sure he would have remembered getting to bed a few hours earlier when his head _didn't_ hurt. So he obviously wasn't in bed and didn't have to get out of it. And then, with that logical dispute to his dad's demand that he face the day, he went immediately back to sleep. He had made his case. His head still hurt. His dad was the loser in the argument and therefore obligated to leave him alone. So Stiles pulled his blankets back over his head and tried to sleep off the pain.

It was some time around ten AM that he woke up again. The rain stopped and the clouds drifted slowly off, uncovering very bright sunlight to his very unprotected eyes through the unsuspecting, closed eyelids. Stiles rolled over to escape it... Only to land on his face on the floor of his dad's work SUV. His lower half stayed on the bench seat tangled in blankets while his aching head braced at an uncomfortable angle against the back of the driver's seat. For the longest time, Stiles couldn't move because for some ungodly reason the uncomfortable angle made the headache stop pounding behind his eyebrows and he stayed still just to enjoy it. Plus that was easier than trying to figure out how he had gotten where he was or how to get his feet and head at the same horizontal level again.

He might have actually fallen asleep again like that. No one was around to prove it.

When he woke up for good, brain still trying to ice-pick-and-hammer a way out of his skull, he found himself very definitely unburrito-blanketed in the back of the sheriff's SUV. Outside the window was the secluded back parking lot of the sheriffs station. His dad was obviously nowhere to be found.

A quick peek at the front seat showed him his shoes and backpack and cell phone. There was a note on the backpack that said something about clothes but actually reading it would have required his eyes cooperating. The only thing those particular painful orbs were interested in doing seemed to be minor false-explosions in their sockets whenever the sunlight slipped in too close. Muttering curses against his own heritage, Stiles found his father's sunglasses and crammed them on his face like his life depended on it.

The shields in place, he felt like he could afford to breathe, and his stomach stopped threatening to make a mess of its own, so Stiles collected his backpack and shoes. The cell made an annoying escape effort and Stiles swore he nearly died trying to save it from the front floorboard from the back seat. Then, absolutely disgusted with his life, he hugged his things and headed for the back door of the station. There was too much sunlight outside. And inside had coffee. Coffee would potentially maybe fix half of the problem, if he could just wake up in spite of the hangover.

He got all the way to the back door, -the locked door, with the camera set-up to show the people on the inside who was walking in from the outside, and the oh so useful monitor screen beside it labeled " _Smile! You're on camera!_ " - before he realized that somehow his dad had gotten him to the truck that morning without any help at all. The ultimate proof of his father winning the argument stared back at him from the grainy security monitor, recording his flannel PJs and faded t-shirt for posterity.

"Screw it," he muttered. He was dressed. People went to WalMart in their pajamas all the time. His dad hadn't really won any half-asleep bets, Stiles had just made a conscious _fashion decision_. The door buzzed then, announcing someone on the other end of the camera feed had unlocked the doors for him. The sound of the latch reverberated in his skull. Stiles let himself in and sulked toward his dad's office. Once he got there, he crashed on the couch, buried his aching face in the cool leather. And then he passed out again.

 

***

 

It was noon before his head cleared and Stiles actually woke up. When he sat up, the skull-twisting pain was nothing more than an unpleasant buzzing. Major improvement.

His dad wasn't in the office so Stiles closed the blinds and shrugged out of his sleep clothes while he had the place to himself. He traded them in for the jeans and shirts he found stuffed in his backpack. How his dad had found _clean_ clothes was beyond Stiles realm of understanding but his brain appreciated the lack of smell. Then, forgetting his shoes, he wandered out to find the coffee pot in the break room. Nobody he really knew was on shift so far and he didn't have to do much more than wave at the deputies who saw him on the way. Nothing stood between Stiles and his chosen headache cure-all.

Five minutes later he sat at the break-room table, inhaling the warm air above his coffee mug as he slumped over it, waiting for it to magically fix his head. It wasn't moving very fast at it. When someone walked in, he squinted up at them pitifully from under the borrowed glasses.

"Figured you'd need these about now," his dad announced as he handed off a pair of pain pills. It was somehow the most beautiful thing his dad had ever done for him. Stiles slurped them down with his coffee. His dad moved over to another table and came back with a pink bakery box.

"And you'll probably need one of these to chase it down," he said. He opened the box as he set it down and Stiles instantly smelled donuts. Fresh, fluffy, sugary donuts. Rolls of fried food and frosting. And his dad reached in the box to pick one up.

"Nuh uh," grunted Stiles. He swatted his dad's hand away and wrapped an arm around the box to sweep it in close. "Not yours."

"You better not eat that whole box. You think it's bad now, you'll be sicker than a dog if-"

"I found your candy bar stash in the dashboard," Stiles reported, bitter. "No donuts for you, big guy. No way."

The sheriff arched an eyebrow. "It mean anything at all to you that I bought that box for the office?"

"Office walls don't eat donuts. And neither does the sheriff. Have a nice day." With that, Stiles wrapped both arms around the box and used it as a pillow.

A moment later his dad dropped two water bottles on the table between Stiles and his abandoned-for-a-cause coffee mug.

"Drink those," he ordered. "And sometime by the end of the shift? I want you to apologize to Deputy Parrish and thank him for his help yesterday."

"Why? He was a jerk." Stiles grumbled about it into the donut box. Maybe if he breathed on them his dad would leave them alone. Probably not. But he put more thought into that than apologizing to anyone.

"He was a jerk?" his dad echoed. "I'm sorry, I seem to recall a phone call from my son where he basically hostaged himself in a _bar_ in _San Francisco,_ so I guess my definition of the word _jerk_ is a little wonky."

Stiles put a little more effort into ignoring his dad. He inched closer to his coffee mug so he could reach it without exposing the box of donuts to the possibility of theft.

"Look, you do what you want here today. But Parrish helped you out, he offered. He did it off the clock so I can't even pay him for it. So you can put in a little effort there," his dad told him. Stiles slumped a little heavier on the cheap bakery box. His dad reached across the table and lightly rapped his knuckles against the top of Stiles' head to get his attention. It worked. Stiles sat up a little too fast trying to dodge the prodding at his sensitive brain matter.

"You and me talk later," his dad said. He waved to indicate the general state of Stiles' head. "When that clears up."

Sulking, Stiles managed a nod. Just out of protest though he pulled the box off the table so his dad couldn't even look at the donuts. Fathers made it to the list of Things That Suck In The World.

 

***

 

Stiles was on his second cup of coffee for the day - well, the afternoon part of the day, anyway - but he still hadn’t stopped hiding behind the sunglasses. He avoided his dad because the man wanted a talk and Stiles didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all his dad, or Deputy Nosey-Parrish. Instead, he lurked in the break-room, stole snacks out of the fridge, pretended to read the months-old magazines lying around on the tables, and mostly zoned out staring at the walls. Also, he kept the donut box close because his dad was not at all allowed anywhere near the donuts under any circumstances. Stiles thought very seriously about taking the donut box with him to the bathroom the one time he left the room just to be sure his dad didn’t sneak in and steal any, but he thought better of it and buried them in a cupboard instead. All other times, it sat within reach on the table and had its own chair that it got put on whenever his dad went in to check on him.

When Stiles heard footsteps in the hall near the door, he reached out and put a protective hand on the box, staring at the door in case he had to move the donuts. However it wasn’t his dad who walked into the break-room. It was Lydia, wearing a guest badge and looking her usual state of annoyed. Stiles blinked at her behind his sunglasses.

“Lydia?” he asked at the same time as she demanded to know what had happened to his face. Stiles ignored that. “Why are you here? Like, how... what?”

By then Lydia stood over him at the table, eyes narrowed as she checked his face. She caught the glasses and tried to lift them from his head but he reached up and swatted her hand away.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. She huffed at him, not believing the lie, and sat down in the donuts’ chair since Stiles had left the box on the table. Stiles frowned at her. Why was she sitting? This was not a social day. This was a sheriff’s department break-room and civilians had invaded and they weren’t supposed to make themselves as comfortable as he had. There were rules...

"I just wanted to be sure you were okay,” said Lydia, ignoring his efforts at protesting. “It's all over school, Stiles. You have no idea how many people asked me about it yesterday."

Stiled rolled his eyes behind the glasses. "I got reamed by my entire history class and then by the district superintendent of schools. I've got a good idea."

"I never should have let this happen. I wasn't paying attention-"

"It's okay, Lydia-"

"No! it's not! I was too worried about you having a good time, I mean, you never go anywhere, and I know why now.” She was dangerously close to tossing her arms in a proper fit and Stiles stared at her, surprised. She sighed and shook her head, and Stiles felt suddenly worse because she was still very obviously frustrated when she looked back at him. “But I should have known it wasn't that simple. I saw my friend, not some 'mega, and it screwed everything up."

Maybe it was the last two days or maybe it was the headache they had caused, but for some reason Stiles had never thought to consider that. He had thought Lydia was going along with Jackson at the party, thought it was just some fun. Like Jackson had smugly announced to the room, there was nothing wrong with breaking in the omegas when they were so obviously whoring it out. Maybe they hadn’t been thinking about it like fully intelligent, sober people, but Lydia really had been thinking about him at the time. And she was still thinking about him, still worried about him. Not some stupid status but him, as her friend.

He wasn’t sure he could talk for minute after that, all the air gone. He didn’t even fuss when Lydia got fed-up with the sunglasses and pulled them off of his face. He stared at her as she frowned at the bruises and cuts from his fight. When she opened her mouth, maybe to apologize again, Stiles shook it off enough to get his voice back.

"I don't care, Lydia,” he said. “I'm not some 'mega. Okay? Maybe I was being a little stupid and I pay for it. But do you seriously have any idea- I mean, you saw _me_ and not the omega stuff and that's... I don't care, the school can shoot me, that’s ... that’s all I care about."

“Jackson was still wrong-”

Stiles shrugged and took his sunglasses back. Jackson was a sensitive subject because he knew where he stood with Jackson, and it was far different than what Lydia had offered. It was just a different brain-space all entirely; no strings, just sex, or at least it would have been. “So? Erica did the same thing. Isaac thought about it a few times. It’s... they can smell things.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

Frustrated by the circles, Stiles turned away from her, back toward the table and started digging in the box he had been guarding all afternoon. He held up something that looked edible by the diet-conscious and offered it to her. “Lydia. Shut up. Here, have a donut.”

She took the donut but looked mildly offended under her confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Donuts are awesome and therefore calm people. Have a donut. Be calm, okay?” The request was real because Stiles was trying for calm, too. It was maybe more than just his dad in his corner. He was afraid to go to Scott because Scott would just be another flat-fall on his face like the bad phone call to Derek had been the night before. Stiles unfortunately still remembered that. But Lydia tracked him down. She wanted him to be him, be happy, and he didn’t want to make her feel bad for it. He had to at least try. Find his zen. _Be the donut_. Lydia just stared at him, seemed to give up trying to make sense of all things _Stiles_ , and set the offering gingerly down on a napkin in front of her on the table.

“I am calm. I’m just _mad_. And _frustrated_ ,” she said. Stiles shrugged and stretched his arms, trying to beat a tired yawn.

"Well if you feel all that bad about not getting any-" He went quiet and just grinned when Lydia turned a narrow-eyed glare back at him.

"Don't _even_ finish that thought, Stiles. That was disastrous enough just making the offer don't you think?"

With another shrug, Stiles picked a donut out of the box for himself. "I dunno, I'm not _supposed_ to think now. Omega privilege."

There was a very real risk of Lydia’s eyes rolling out of her head at that. "I swear I will beat you with my purse..."

“‘Mega Treasures like myself should be treated with care, so purse beating is generally frowned upon," Stiles informed her. He was beginning to see some beautiful avenues of opportunity open up on this omega-course things had taken, if for nothing else than to watch his friend lose her collected shit. Sensing the game, Lydia sighed.

“Nobody is here to be remotely concerned if I’m forced to beat sense into you,” she said. Not apparently the least concerned for the fact that she was threatening assault and battery within the very walls of the sheriff’s station. But she had a point. The break-room was empty and his dad was probably the last one to come to his rescue against Lydia’s purse anyway. Stiles shrugged and tore off a bit of his too-much-sugared donut.

“You never know. My omega milkshake brings all the spooks to the yard?" he offered. Lydia looked less than impressed but he saw the tell-tale crack of the stern expression, the tiniest lift of one corner of her lips. Stiles grinned smugly to himself. It was true if Lydia agreed.

A tan-dressed, person-shape appeared in the doorway then, just off his peripheral vision, and Stiles reflexively moved to protect the bakery box, startling even Lydia for a moment. She arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, just nibbled at her donut. When Stiles turned to look, he was mildly annoyed that the theatrics had been wasted. It wasn’t his dad in the doorway but was instead Deputy Parrish grinning at him all smug about something.

"I never really considered you a treasure to be honest,” Parrish said on his way to the coffee pot. “I guess I missed a memo."

Stiles still hadn’t fully forgiven Parrish for taking sides in the truck, even if he had driven him home. But he had to apologize to the guy at some point so he had to get over it. Lydia dismissed the teasing and seemed to be trying to hint for Stiles to follow suit so he faked a smile and tried to play it off. "Oh, yeah, comes with the same memo that removes the whole self-autonomy feature of omegas' humanity. Fascinating read."

"Definitely missed _that_ memo," said Parrish. He seemed a little surprised but the man was hard to read, preoccupied with his coffee-making, and Stiles wasn’t sure if the guy was even paying attention.

"You also definitely missed me nearly being shoved into a car,” said Stiles. Lydia turned on him with wide eyes and the frustrated demand for information just at the tip of her tongue. Stiles ignored her as best he could because he wanted the deputy to go away. “So I guess you gotta wake up and smell the coffee, deputy."

Parrish held up the coffee mug in his hand in cheers, his amused grin not at all faded given Stiles was obviously about to get an earful from Lydia about it. "Or maybe you should switch to decaf for awhile. Find your zen. Have a donut and keep moving, step at a time. All that."

“Excuse me!” Lydia interrupted, still staring at Stiles. “But can we rewind away from the donuts and get back to the part about getting _shoved in cars_?”

Parrish gave a slight wave and headed for the door. “Might keep your voice down about that.”

That surprised Stiles a little. Until that moment, he would have put money on a bet that Parrish would have told his dad by now. But if they had to keep quiet about it then his dad still didn't know. Lydia _thwapped_ him in the shoulder with the back of her hand, reminding him suddenly that he had to figure out how to tell _her_.

“Damn.”

 

***

 

The fact that there were ten text messages and two phone calls sitting on his phone from none other than Derek Hale said something. Stiles stared at the phone as another text popped up, this time from Lydia.

_ _Derek says to call him. If he's going to start calling me to track you down then you are sorting that out fast_._

Stiles scrunched his nose at the message. He almost didn't reply but the bitter side won. The emotional wreck of the day before was still close to the surface.

_ _he's not worried about me. just some omega he let in the pack._ _

He sent the reply and then slouched in his chair at the break room table, thinking it over. He wasn't sure he believed it, seeing it written out in letters like that. Calling Derek that night had been stupid and maybe it hadn't exactly been a fair conversation to base the impression on. Not to mention the fact that his mental state at the time was _slightly_ inebriated. Really, all he knew for sure was that was probably somebody else he had to apologize to. Then his phone chirped again, another message from Lydia.

_ _You can't even tell a convincing lie via txt msg. You promised no more whining. Call Derek or I will._ _

Stiles left it alone after that. He did send Derek a text to say he was alive and fine. Anything more than that would have to wait until he wasn't at the station, when he had a chance to pick apart what he remembered of the phone call.

As his head cleared, Stiles got bored with the break room and decided he needed to go bother his dad for that chat. The only thing in the way of that was deputy Parrish. And it wasn't like an apology could take that long. He grabbed his stuff and started for the door before he felt himself start to chicken out. He swung back to the table and collected the box of donuts as a shield. Everybody liked donuts.

 

***

 

The path to the office was clear. He could have made it without being noticed and Stiles had absolutely no problems fibbing to his dad about the whole apology thing. He had talked to Parrish that day, that counted, right? The only snag was his dad, sitting at his desk in his office, staring out the open door right at Stiles and watching him walk right by Parrish’s desk. There would be no way Stiles could wriggle out of that anti-loophole. It wasn’t fair. Reminding himself not to mutter because he never knew who had supernatural hearing around Beacon Hills, Stiles kept his annoyance to himself and turned back around to detour over to Parrish’s desk.

He stood off to the side of it, his back to his dad’s office so he wouldn’t have to think about it, and waited somewhat impatiently to be noticed. The deputy was annoyingly perfect and didn’t make him wait long, looking up at Stiles with some combination of surprise and hesitation. Like there were equal odds Stiles would bite him as talk to him or something.

“Hi,” said Deputy Parrish.

“Yeah, hi,” said Stiles. He fidgeted and then put the box down, turned it carefully so the openable side faced Parrish. “So I brought you these.”

The man arched an eyebrow at Stiles, worthy of any Hale. “The donuts you were hiding from your dad all day?”

Stiles nodded, no stranger to getting called out. He rolled with it. “Yeah. I figure you can keep him out of them and reap the rewards. Free donuts.”

“Well, uh, thanks? I think. But I’m not really one for donuts,” said the annoying deputy. Who didn’t eat donuts. Seriously.

“You’re fine. You’ve got the whole weird fire-thing going for you or whatever, so if you’re anything like Scott you could eat the whole fridge and be fine,” reasoned Stiles. Jordan glanced around the empty room and Stiles scrunched his nose. “Sorry. I mean... yeah. Sorry. For making you drive my dad and for you having to take me home.”

“It’s not - I mean, your dad needed help getting you in the house and everything, you were both soaking wet,” said Parrish. Stiles stared at him, wide-eyed and slightly shocked under the whole new level of embarrassment. Parrish didn’t seem to notice, looking around the room anywhere but at Stiles then. “And since Boss drove the jeep back, you might keep an eye on him for a cold or something, I mean, it was really raining last night-”

“Oh my god,” muttered Stiles, rubbing his hands over his face. There weren’t even cracks in the linoleum floor he could wish himself into falling through. This was really his embarrassing, stupid life. “Okay, I’m sorry my dad made you help put me to bed and I’m sorry we have a two story house. And I’m sorry it rained. So _very_ sorry it rained.”

The deputy looked back at him then, unhappy based on the furrow the brow had taken and the thin line of his lips. “That’s not what I meant, Stiles. I meant to say you don’t have to apologize for anything. You were having... problems. And I wanted to help.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have had to is all,” said Stiles. He shrugged and crossed his arms, feeling bad suddenly for being so annoyed at the man. Even if he didn’t understand why Stiles had freaked out, he at least had tried to help, so he didn’t deserve to be shoved at about it. “And I don’t know why you didn’t tell my dad what I told you, but thanks for not telling him.”

“I didn’t tell him because you asked me not to,” the deputy replied. “And at this point, unless you have a crystal clear description of the people and vehicles involved, there is absolutely nothing that could be done about it. That’s assuming they didn’t see your car and follow you, but given you were alone at the rest area so long, I’d think that’s not the case.”

That wasn’t an outcome Stiles had really thought about when he had finally climbed back inside the jeep that night. He stared at Parrish, slack-jawed and momentarily stupid. Finally he shook his head, mostly confident about the jeep-thing but definitely positive about not remembering enough about the man’s face to have made a report about it.

“So then I’ll let you tell him when you want to,” said Jordan. He hesitated, still looking concerned about something. “And I’m sorry too. For asking about the fight, Brunski. I just... didn’t think you were really paying attention to where you were, you were shocky, you know? And I wasn’t sure if we needed to find you a hospital or not before we went home.”

“Nah, I was fine, just a fight. Slept it off,” muttered Stiles. The guy had pissed him off big-time mentioning Brunski and Stiles hadn’t planned on forgiving him for it any time soon. He hadn’t expected the apology or the explanation, either. He suddenly felt about two inches tall and wanted to just leave.

“We probably should have made you stay awake, it could be a concussion,” reasoned the deputy. Stiles shook his head.

“No, I’m fine,” he said. “I get worse with the guys-” He waved it off and scrubbed at his messy hair, self-conscious of it and the rumpled clothes and the half-tied shoes on his feet. “Anyway. I gotta go talk to my dad. So just... thanks for the help, man. I’m sorry I was a jerk about it.”

It looked like he wanted to argue, but Jordan just closed his mouth and nodded. He even offered up a shade of his usual cheery grin. “Any time. Just call.”

Stiles let out a light laugh and motioned at the room around them. “Yeah, I guess I know the number.”

It amused Parrish and that was the goal so Stiles gave a small wave and excused himself. A moment later, he shut the office door and crashed down on the couch, ignoring his father’s raised eyebrow about it.

 

***


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is now finished! So there will be two chapters posted, just FYI... :)
> 
>  
> 
> \----------------

Stiles stared at the glass door in front of them. "This is the worst idea."

"Yeah, well, it was your idea, so..." He gaped as his dad held out an arm, welcoming him to open the door to the matchmaker's office all on his own.

"Yeah it was my idea but it wasn't my idea to go _now_ ," Stiles pointed out. The sheriff huffed a sigh and drew his hands in to clasp behind his back, at rest in uniform.

"No, it wasn't. But let's think about this a minute," the man said, suspiciously casual. It was the tone he had when he schemed. It never turned out well for Stiles but he listened anyway. "You promised those idiots at the school that you'd show up and try the matchmaking thing, right?"

Stiles nodded in answer.

"And they printed out the paper for your homework, so considerate and thorough..." his dad went on. "Took away all the handy excuses to _forget_ to go."

"You know, I am really not seeing how this is supposed to make me want to walk in there," said Stiles.

His dad coughed, polite, but _bullshitting_. "There is absolutely nothing you can do if for whatever reason the matchmaker refuses to take you on as a client. _Maybe_ you're just unmatchable. Too rough around the edges for her niche. But you have to at least do your part in the deal, nothing more, nothing less."

Stiles stared at his dad as it clicked. He suddenly liked the way his dad's brain worked. He stole the man's glasses again and put them over his eyes like he had that morning when he'd had a headache. Both hands went into the effort to mess up his hair.

"This good?" he asked. "Do you think I should, like, limp or something? _Really_ sell it..."

His dad shrugged, lifted a hand to wobble back and forth as he scrunched his nose. "Keep it subtle."

"Good plan. Yes. Subtle." Stiles nodded. His dad waved toward the door again. Stiles reached for it and let himself in, intentionally not holding it open for his dad. Manners were an important part of an omega being matchable. He had terrible, terrible manners, and his dad had said to go subtle...

 

***

 

The HeartLight Counseling Services offices were plain and intimidating, like a doctor's office space tucked at the corner of the professional plaza complex. The carpets were gray-blue and the walls were cream and the pictures on them were all expensive-looking, landscapes and peaceful, happy things. There were photo collages everywhere of happy couples, and Stiles was kind of annoyed because he couldn't tell if they were of actual success-story clients or just models. He flicked at the fake tree in the corner and tried not to pace as they waited. It was exactly like a doctor's office.

Normal people didn't bother with the clinical, professional "counseling service based" matching programs. They just hopped on the internet and online dating websites found them hookups or soulmates, depending on how much they wanted to pay per month. The omegas -with their stupid fae-blessed-chaos chemical make-up- had to be more careful than that. They could overdose on the natural love-drug to some random stranger online and go crazy when it didn't work out. So common wisdom was that they had to be matched, consciously and deliberately, with the potential mates already screened, by someone who knew both parties. So it was called counseling and based on science and not just voodoo so that omegas and their families could have their health insurance cover the costs. It wasn't cheap; it took skill and was supposed to be a one-time thing, because the counseled matches were 80% more likely to result in marriage.

Stiles had spent time reading up on the whole con-job one particularly miserable night during a heat four years earlier. It was before the werewolf thing and he was absolutely miserable, couldn't sleep, and he really wanted somebody to make everything stop hurting. But the more he read about it all, the more intimidating it got. Everything for omegas was more expensive, they were completely high maintenance and an overall burden on their families and society. Stiles didn't want to be a breeding machine, he wanted to be a detective, so the whole thing was nonsense, in his way. So by the time he was thirteen he stopped playing the whole game and ignored all things omega. He just did his own thing. All because he read up on the miraculous _matchmakers_.

So it kind of figured that in this clinic - _the only one in town_ \- there were three matchmaker-counselors with their Masters degrees in psychology and all of them were helping clients when Stiles did finally show up to talk to one. His pacing seemed to grate on the nerves of the receptionist and the man finally called them back to wait in an office.

"It'll be just a few more minutes," he told them. "We're running a little behind."

Then he shut them in and Stiles had a new patch of carpet to wear out. He finally slumped down into the chair by his dad on the other side of the big desk. He saw a picture frame by the computer screen, facing away from them, and he had just reached out to snoop on it when the door opened again.

"So sorry I'm late! I got caught up at the school," said the woman who walked in. Stiles dropped the photo frame just as he had started to pick it up and he turned to see who had walked in. Her voice was way too familiar. By then she had come up to the desk to greet them and stood just off Stiles' shoulder. He looked up at her, gaping like a fish. Staring at Natalie Martin.

"Oh," she said.

“What the he-”

“Watch your language around the lady, Stiles," his dad interrupted quickly. Stiles looked back at him, just a little shocked.

“But she’s our teacher!”

Mrs. Martin raised a hand to offer up a detail. “Substitute.”

“But isn’t this some kinda conflict of interest with the- _Lydia'smom!_ ”

He went quiet when Mrs. Martin reached out and took his sunglasses off of his face, calmly folded them up and set them on the edge of the desk in front of him. She brushed hesitantly at his hair and shook her head. Then she moved around to her own chair and sat down, prim and perfect as usual while Stiles felt like he was losing his mind. _How was this fair?_

“The bigger question," said Mrs. Martin, "Is how did you not know who you were setting up the appointment with?”

Stiles looked accusingly at his father and the sheriff held up his hands, quick to dodge the blame for that one.

“I just made a phone call. It’s not like your name’s on the sign out front or anything," he said. Mrs. Martin nodded sagely and looked to Stiles.

“And now _yours_ is on my list, so let’s see what we can find for you.” As she spoke, she started turning on her computer. It took Stiles a moment to catch up. The woman picked up the dropped picture frame and set it further out of his reach, which meant on the other side of the monitor on the corner of the L-shaped desk. He saw the picture easy enough then, of Lydia and her mom laughing about something as Lydia snapped the selfie. Stiles pointed at the picture.

“Lydia. Lydia would be awesome.”

Mrs. Martin shook her head, otherwise distracted setting up her workspace. “Stiles, sweetie, if it hasn’t happened in _two years_ , it’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna move on.”

Stiles slumped in his chair. “This is some kinda conspiracy...”

"No, Stiles, there is no conspiracy here," said his dad. He used much the same long-suffering tone as Lydia's mom had and that completely wasn't fair.

“Lydia can’t just be a beard or something? Just until I get into school? She’ll _actually_ let me go to school..."

“Stiles!” came the concerned though mildly frustrated exclamation from both Lydia's mom and his dad. Stiles did what he was good at and ignored them.

“Wait. Why didn’t Lydia tell me-”

Mrs. Martin shook her head. “She’s the reason my name isn’t on the sign out front. I'm fairly certain she’d kill me for the added embarrassment. It’s bad enough I’m at the school as a teacher...”

That was not sufficient justification for one of his best friends leaving something this important out of every conversation of the past two years. He waved a hand between the three of them present in the room. “Just so we’re clear on the part where I'm gonna kill her.”

His father slouched a little in his chair, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Stiles. Do not threaten felonies around law enforcement. Just... don’t. Don’t do it. No more.”

Stiles waved it off. “It’s just Lydia.”

“Oh my god," muttered his dad. Lydia's mom sighed and frowned. She turned away from her computer and faced Stiles more directly.

“Stiles, I heard about the problem with Jackson’s father. _Trust_ me. I heard about it. From _three different people,_ I heard about it," she told him. Stiles felt impossibly small and his ears turned a little pink from some cross between anger and embarrassment. Natalie waved it off.

"So, between you, me and the light-post, if you don’t want to go this route, don’t do it. There is no reason to unless it’s something you want to do. It’s silly and it’s awkward and it’s work. I don’t care what David says. If you don’t want to be here, I'll just... see you at the house this weekend. Lydia said she made you promise not to be a hermit because of Jackson’s stupid ass of a father. Alright?”

Stiles scowled at the corner of the desk, thinking it over. His dad shifted, his usual awkward and uncomfortable at the whole thing.

"The whole idea isn't your thing, kiddo. You don't have to do anything Whittemore tells you to do, least of all _date_ anybody. I will personally kick your ass if you start dating for any reason short of liking what you're looking at," his dad said.

"I don't _date_. I don't have... _people_ to date," muttered Stiles. He wanted to go to school, help Scott and Derek with the weird stuff, not get married. He gnawed at a fingernail and tried to sort out what to do. He huffed at the sudden realization that it wasn't that simple anyway; Whittemore would go after him for backing out of the IEP if he didn't. Or he would make life suck for his dad at work because the guy knew _exactly_ how to do that.

"He made it homework," Stiles said to his dad, quiet. "I have to do something with it or he'll make noise about me not following the rules."

"So we can leave. I'll pay at the door and we can wave the receipt in the man's face," said his dad. "And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Martin will back us up on this."

Lydia's mom nodded quickly. "I have a degree and years of experience at what I do. I cannot tell you how mad I get when someone tries to step in and pretend they know better. I would love to correct David's way of thinking on this. Just say the word."

Stiles thought it over, fidgeting and getting anxious. He wanted school, he wanted to be a cop, he wanted to do his own thing... But he _was_ curious. He had accidentally started something when he got his hands on Jackson for something that wasn't fighting. The idea of suffering through the mess of the Omega Track living like some hungry, dirty-minded monk for the next six months wasn't at all appealing. He was kind of done with it, or at least he wanted to be. He wasn't going back to trying to figure out Malia, and all he had left of his friends were Scott, and the weird little pack-thing he had with Derek and Lydia. He couldn't exactly ask them on a date _now_.

He didn't know anything about what he was getting into. Maybe on the Omega Track, homework assignments included things like making-out and sex. He would be okay with that. But he just didn't know. And if he had the excuse, with a whole world of people telling him he was missing out, why _not_ learn? Dating wasn't marriage. He only had to keep the school happy for six months. If his new "physical education" class was all about _the sex_ now, why the hell not?

It was never a good thing when he got curious; the idea would never leave him alone. Stiles shook his head. "No, I wanna try it."

 

***


	10. Chapter 10

The rest of the week was far less eventful. His dad dragged him to the station every morning - a much less painful process without a hangover - and he had to do filing and fetch coffee, his usual punishment for stepping out of line in such dramatic fashion. Stiles wasn't allowed his laptop or anything electronic aside from his cellphone, and he was definitely not allowed the keys to his jeep. He would be lucky if he got those back in time to go back to school. (Not that he was looking forward to that experience.) His only appointments outside of child-labor for the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department were his appointments with Lydia's mom for the matchmaking thing, and his dad wouldn't even let him drive himself to those. He was on a very short leash from Wednesday night to Saturday morning. The other end of the leash was only passed over to either Lydia or her mother, too. That was it. He could live with it.

The whole process of signing up with Natalie took an hour that first day and he was glad his hangover had passed by then. Then there were another three appointments for more poking around in his head. Stiles realized it was a good thing Lydia's mom was his matchmaker because she probably already knew half his issues. They shortcut a lot as she selectively ignored certain assumptions about the kind of calm life most omega enjoyed; they didn't apply to Stiles.

Her appointments also came with a handful of warnings and disclaimers: the center could set up the matches and do a certain amount of vetting, but they could not guarantee a match, they could not guarantee the personal preferences of both parties or predict physical attraction, and they could not guarantee the safety of the omega. For those reasons, the suggestion of the clinic was for dates to be chaperoned until both parties felt comfortable in more casual settings and could _graduate_ to something like group dates.

That seemed stupid to Stiles. He had never been on a _date_ in his life maybe, didn't know the "rules" for dating. But he had been practically naked and had a mostly-okay time making-out with Malia - aside from her absolute lack of control with the whole clawing thing -  so he felt like he knew what the point was anyway. He had been to parties. He hung out with his friends all the time. He knew the custom of omegas needing escorts, with family always around to speak for them, but the idea of he, himself, going on chaperoned dates was just stupid. It didn't apply to him.

Except he remembered San Francisco clearly, how a man's wife and friends had sat at a bar conspiring to make the man lose his job, to force him to do something he didn't want. He remembered the stranger after the bar, remembered running and hiding from an SUV. He didn't know if the guy was a hunter like the Argents or somebody who trafficked omega in the black-market. As the paranoid son of a sheriff, Stiles had done a lot of reading on _those guys_ back before werewolves took over his life. They weren't pretty. And the guy in the city had tried to sweet-talk him before he tried to force him in a car. No matchmaker would be able to screen for that kind of intent. In light of the unpredictable nature of an absolutely blind date, Stiles saw the logic behind the chaperone custom even if he didn't agree with it entirely.

So, when Lydia's mom set him up on a date for that Saturday, Stiles made his dad chaperone. It wasn't like he really had to twist the guy's arm or anything. Even Lydia wanted to go, to supervise and make sure Stiles didn't screw anything up. Stiles wasn't even sure _how_ to screw up on "a date" to know what not to do. Lydia, however, wasn't family. It wasn't custom for her to serve as chaperone.

So she made _Danny_ go on a date with _her_ and they stalked Stiles from another table.

That was infinitely preferable to the awkwardness of Stiles' dad sitting at the table. The date wasn't anything fancy, just dinner out at an old fashioned burger joint. It was casual and just a meet-and-greet. And the girl Natalie matched him up with was cute and funny and her purse had a Superman patch on it, all very good signs. But it was all weird to Stiles. They changed custom a little and his dad sat a table away, quietly reading a magazine and eating a bacon burger because Stiles wasn't sitting with him to order for him. Lydia chattered with Danny a few tables away. All of them were there to snoop on him. Now Stiles knew why he and Malia never advertised what went on in their study sessions.

He was so distracted by the rules - _don't slouch, don't make fart jokes, don't talk with your mouth full, don't do this or that or any of a dozen other hypothetical ridiculous things_ \- that he mostly just kept quiet. He forgot the girl's name within ten minutes and she mostly got to do the talking. She was nice, with interesting stuff going on in her life, including a scholarship to Harvard. Stiles felt kind of bad because the first thing he thought when she told him that was that it meant a guaranteed only-temporary dating thing. He didn't have a prayer at making it into Harvard. Nor the interest to begin with.

There just wasn't any spark with the girl. He didn't feel any potential connection to her at all. It seemed pretty mutual, though; they parted company with a handshake and didn't even exchange numbers. His life was so awkward. Dating was only going to make it worse, he realized. But Stiles felt relieved and accomplished for having tried it anyway.

And he made the very clear, very personal decision that he wasn't interested in _Potential Girlfriend Material Number One_ , all by himself, at some point over the course of the meal. Nobody popped up out of a corner to lock him into a contract, nobody attacked him and dragged him into a get-away-van. It was weird, but it wasn't anything different than being at school in the cafeteria. He got to make up his own mind not to chase the girl and they parted with a handshake. That was it. Nothing complicated or scary at all.

He switched tables when the girl left, sliding into the bench across from his dad and commandeering his basket of fries.

"I saw what you ordered, just for the record," he informed his dad. It got him frowned at.

"Really? You were just on a date with a real, normal, pretty girl... and you paid attention to _my food choices?_ It went that well?" his dad asked.

"Yeah... that one’s a _no_.” Stiles shook his head at a French fry. No interest, no spark, even if they might have matched on paper.

“Try, try again?” asked Lydia. She slid into the bench from the other side and invited herself into Stiles' love-life discussions without hesitation. Danny at least had the courtesy to lurk before sitting down across from them.

“Yeah. Next week: _movies_ ," Stiles said, distracted by their entrance.

“Oh hell no," said both the sheriff and Danny at once. Lydia rolled her eyes.

"No, you should stick with dinner for now. Save the movies for the second date," said Lydia.

"I'll never get any-" Stiles paused as Lydia arched an eyebrow at her and his dad pinched the bridge of his nose. He changed tracks quickly. " _Anywhere_ with anyone if I'm worried about snoops all the time."

"I know my mom read you the rules," said Lydia. "It's not smart to be by yourself on these."

"Come on. I'm almost eighteen. Those rules didn't apply to someone like me," said Stiles. "Not strictly. Anyway. Nobody can _abscond_ with me from a movie theater."

"That is not the most intelligent outlook," offered Danny. Stiles shrugged it off.

"Intelligence has nothing to do with it," he said. “Nobody lining up to meet an omega my age is in it for the brains. It's all about that _one thing_... I mean, your mom is like my wingman- wingwoman?"

Lydia stared at him. “Never say that again, please."

"Well? If it weren't for babysitters around all the time I could totally be getting action. Week after week, a new one every time... Your mom is like my dealer now."

His dad arched his right eyebrow in that one look he got when he wanted to call _bullshit_ but couldn't because Stiles had very carefully _layered_ the bullshit. He let it pass and Stiles grinned at the small win.

The logic didn't work for Lydia and she huffed as she dug into her purse for a make-up refresh. "If you insist on looking at it that way, I prefer to think she's a pimp."

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her. "Fine, I won't say that ever again."

Her lipstick adjusted and perfect, Lydia smiled over at him. "So. Try, try again, next week. _Not_ at the movies."

"Yeah, not at the movies," said Stiles. Lydia nodded her acceptance and promised to sic her mom on a new match to save him a phone call. Then she pecked a kiss to Stiles' cheek and she and Danny excused themselves to leave. Stiles finished off the last of his dad's French fries in a comfortable, pensive quiet. Then they were done and headed out to the car.

Stiles looked to his dad. “You should bring Melissa. Next week I mean.”

Given that until that point, Stiles had left him out of it, his dad looked up and stalled out for a moment. “...that is not fair.”

“Why? If I’m _dating_ , you have to.”

The good sheriff shook his head and probably would have run away except for the fact that he was just getting behind the wheel of his car and running would have been awkward. “I did not agree to that.”

Not letting it go, Stiles climbed into the passenger side. “Yeah, well, you should have. She’d do it.”

“How would you know?” his dad asked.

Stiles shrugged. “Scott told me ages ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The car started up and his dad started backing them out of the spot. “Uhhuh. Right. _Yeah sure_ is the phrase you use when you want to watch me fall on my face.”

The dating thing could be fun, maybe, but it was weird. If nothing else, Stiles could try to angle a family out of it playing matchmaker himself. He kept prodding at the subject, nodded his head to add sincerity. “Yeah, _for Melissa_ , you can fall on your face, and I’d be okay with that.”

His dad looked over at him. “No more talking.”

“Ten-four.” Stiles hid a grin by looking out the window.

 

***

 

The light was on in his bedroom as they hit the driveway. It had been very definitely turned off when they left. Stiles checked his cell phone but didn't see any texts warning him of visitors, which narrowed the potential reasons down even further.

"Derek's here," he told his dad. The sheriff nodded, eying the second floor himself as they parked.

"Anything I need to know about?"

"Dunno. He didn't say," said Stiles. "But Malia never turned the light on, Scott would have called, and nobody else can get up there, so... Derek."

"He could use the front door, you know."

"Kinda think he's mad," said Stiles. His dad didn't like that answer and Stiles pulled a face. "I called him when I was drunk and a jerk. Haven't since."

"In that case, I'm going to go to the store for a few things and look the other way," said his dad. "Good luck, son."

Stiles thought it was a joke as his dad shooed him out of the car. Then his dad _left_. The man either had forgotten about the whole _werewolf thing_ or he had entirely too much faith in Derek Hale. With great reluctance, Stiles headed into his house on his own.

He lurked in the kitchen rather than go upstairs to be pounced on. Not because he was scared, or worried he was going to be killed, but mostly just because he was a chickenshit. He knew he needed to apologize. But he didn't want to risk having it confirmed out loud that he was only part of the pack because he was an omega they couldn't kick out. He had been through too much with them, they were his friends, and he didn't want to lose them because of it. It wasn't rational, considering the werewolves were more aware of his cycle than Stiles chose to be, and they let him in anyway. But if that was the only reason? Stiles would rather leave than find that out.

It didn't matter that he had just had a burger less than an hour earlier, he was hungry again suddenly. Stalling. Worried. So he dug into the refrigerator, chasing milk and bread and cheese and things for a sandwich. When he closed the door and turned around, Derek stood in the doorway to the hall, arms crossed. It wasn't a total surprise. He didn't look angry, either.

"Hi," Stiles offered as he dumped the food on the counter.

"I thought you just had dinner?" asked Derek.

"Yeah and I'm hungry. Big deal," Stiles replied. "How'd you know-"

Derek held up his cell phone in answer. " _Lydia_ still talks to me."

 _Right_. Stiles frowned, fidgeted with the bread a little. Then he turned to face Derek, wanting to get it over with.

"Look, I shouldn't have called you. But I was drunk and if you want to know the truth, I was scared," he said.

"Yeah, I caught that much at the time," said Derek. And he obviously wasn't a fan of the experience, based on the stubborn set to his jaw. He wasn't going to let it go and the quiet dragged a bit more. Stiles didn't know what to do with it and finally caved.

"I just... Wanted somebody on my side then. You know how, like, a couple years ago, how you were talking about werewolves like you're all monsters or some shit and you were all pissed off because of the kanima and whatever else you were worried about? I had to tell you you weren't because you weren't like that, you weren't some abomination... You know I get that, right? I'm not like _my dad_. I'm not like you or Scott or _anybody_. You at least have pack. I got... suspended. I lost all my classes."

Derek listened and then he nodded. "Lydia told me about the Omega Track."

Considering Stiles hadn't figured out how to tell Lydia-the-academic-overachiever about being switched to the track, that was a surprise. "What? How did she know to tell you?"

"Finstock told Scott why you weren't back in classes yet," said Derek. "Because apparently you haven't been talking to _him_ either."

"He won't get it," said Stiles. "Nobody does. So I just gotta get over it."

Derek shook his head. "I think you'd be surprised how much we get it, Stiles."

"No you don't," said Stiles. It hurt a little to be placated like that. "I called you and the first thing you said was that I can't handle it. You said I shouldn't be alone-"

"Yeah, because the whole point in having a pack is so you don't have to do shit like this _on your own_ ," returned Derek. He sounded a little mad about having to spell it out. "That doesn't just mean other people go to you when they need _your_ help. That means you come to us when you need _our_ help. That means that when you want to run away to get your balance, you take one of us with you. _That's_ the point."

Not sure what to say to that, Stiles just stared at him. Derek was mad, the frustrated kind of mad. Stiles hadn't seen that one in awhile.

"So this stuff with the school doesn't matter," Derek went on. "The problem is with them. There's nothing wrong with you. You're still pack because I trust you. Not because you're fae-blessed. Lydia's a banshee. The fae apparently don't bother me as much as they should."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means _the banshee_ tried to kill me but I trust her. It means omegas are the last thing I should want in a pack because they're supposed to come with baggage. But you don't. You're not weak or fragile, you're one of us," said Derek.

And Stiles knew it was true, too. Derek had put a lot more work in figuring out what was going on with him than Scott had that week, and that said a lot all by itself. Pack was more important than family to Derek and he still counted Stiles as pack. He wasn't going anywhere. At least not over something as stupid as a socially-mandated change in career path; what would that mean to the priorities of an independently-wealthy werewolf anyway? It had successfully turned Stiles' world on it's ear, but that didn't change anything for Derek or Lydia apparently. They had always known and Stiles had never made them deal with "an omega" because he didn't fit the stereotype. He was just himself, and he had wriggled his way into their world without fully realizing how far that went.

"So when I'm old and broke and living in my dad's basement because I'm bad at conforming and don't have anybody else to pay my bills, you guys will still be around?" There wasn't actually as much sarcasm as there could have been to it, probably a little too much hope. But Derek just nodded.

"That's how it works, Stiles. You're in until you leave. So just don't leave," he said.

"Okay. I can live with that," Stiles agreed. He actually managed a slight grin.

"Good," said Derek. He moved away from where he had been leaning against the wall and edged Stiles out of his way. "Now go sit down."

Stiles didn't back off much, flustered by the food-theft from right under his nose. "What-"

" _I_ haven't had dinner yet," Derek told him. "So I'm making a sandwich. Go sit down if you still want one."

The joke was there, Stiles knew it was because he saw the faintest tilt of Derek's lips that have it away. But he could still appreciate it.

"Fine, make me a sandwich," he returned. And he jumped up to sit on the counter and wait for his sandwich.

 

***

 

The grocery store wasn't very crowded at night, which made it generally easy for Jordan to sneak in and shop and sneak back out again. It was a neighborhood store and it seemed like everyone knew him there; at least four people would stop him for a chat if he went in the middle of the day. At night it wasn't quite as common and he made it all the way around the store without being social.

He normally skipped the bakery but the pink boxes near the counter caught his eye and made him laugh. The last three days at work had been hilarious, watching Stiles viciously defend the sheriff's internal organs from pollutants and toxins and carcinogens that existed nowhere but in Stiles' imagination. The donuts had been the beginning of the comedy and it had evolved into strict salad lunches and carrots and hummus for snacks. By the end of it, Parrish figured his boss was lucky he was still allowed to drink coffee because Stiles' protest to not being allowed to drive or babysit himself seemed to be constant vigilance in warding off the break-room. It seemed like standard Stiles behavior, with a little extra obnoxiousness to get his message across. Jordan stood at the donuts shelves, seriously considering taking pity on his boss and bringing donuts in to work in the morning since Stiles was supposed to go back to school on Monday and wouldn't be there to guard them.

"Don't tell Stiles," the sheriff said and Jordan looked up to see his boss sneaking past him with a pink bakery box to fill with donuts.

"He'll probably notice when those go home with you," Jordan pointed out, amused.

"Nah. I'm dropping them off at the station before I head home," said the sheriff. "But the guys complained about the squashed condition of the goods the last few days so I figure I better make it up to them before the natives get too restless."

Jordan nodded his understanding; he had heard the complaints too. "I thought you had to chaperone tonight?"

"I did. They did their thing. I ordered a bacon burger. He waited a whole _hour_ to get on my case about it," said the sheriff. "So they didn't hit it off this week. Apparently he'll give it another shot next week, just not with her."

"Huh," said Jordan. He was a little surprised. Stiles had always seemed to like everyone, so it was weird that he didn't get along on a _date_. Especially when he had been matched to the other person by someone who knew what they were doing. Certainly Stiles couldn’t be that hard to match up with someone.

"Yeah," the sheriff agreed. "I don't know about this whole scheme. It's just all so opposite of how he normally works, you know? I guess. I didn't help, keeping him out of the track... But he's my kid. I'm not going to make him do something that doesn't work for him. He gets too bored, too easy. The Omega Track didn't fit. And now this dating thing..." The sheriff shook his head.

"You're letting him do it now though," said Jordan. "If he doesn't want to then why are you letting him do it?"

"He said he wanted to try, so he's trying it," said the sheriff. "But if the first one's this boring to him, I'm not putting much faith in Natalie's way finding anything for him. I figure he'll find someone his own way. That's usually how Stiles works, just stumbles into things. I expect this will be no different."

It made sense but Jordan was still a little disappointed. He wanted Stiles to catch a break and had hoped the matchmaker option would do it. He felt bad for Stiles’ situation with the school, even though he didn’t completely understand Stiles’ absolute opposition to being _himself_ when there was nothing wrong with any omega Parrish had ever met. Still, he shrugged it off. "So if it's not date night, where is he?"

"At home, hopefully sorting things out with Derek," said the sheriff. "He's been avoiding people the past few days. Maybe Derek will knock sense into him. He doesn't like it when the kid disappears..."

"He's had a hard week, it makes sense that he doesn't want to be social," Jordan reasoned. Stiles had certainly been cranky at the station but he had slowly been returning to normal it seemed, or at least the normal that Jordan knew. "Maybe he just needed a few days."

The sheriff nodded but shrugged. "And he got a few days. But that's all he's getting. Because I don't care what that school wants or doesn't want. I just know, after the crap they threw at him this week, my kid needs to deal with his friends and remember he's still human."

"A werewolf will do that for him?" The thought was almost amusing. To his surprise, his boss just nodded.

"Who better?" he replied. "The guy's been both. He oughta know the difference. It's why I wanted you to meet him. The way I see it, that stuff's important. And we can trust him to help out. He always has before."

It made sense to Jordan and he realized then he hadn't considered it that way before. The sheriff thumped him on the shoulder then and said his goodbyes. "I should get this to the station and get home."

Jordan nodded, agreeing. He has his own shopping to finish up, too. But as he wandered the rest of the store, he caught himself hoping Derek had been able to help Stiles. He realized a little late that he still needed some reassurances himself on where the line sat between someone _human_ and something _wrong_ , and he knew more certainly that there was nothing _wrong_ about an omega. Whatever he was, he wasn't so sure about yet, but Stiles was fine. He just hoped the guy would believe it somehow.

 

\------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd that's it for the first fic. It's an open verse so there will be more. :) It'll just be a bit because there's a couple other stories demanding the next in THEIR verses... ;)


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